
y, 



THE CAS 




OF THE 



V 



ARREST, TRIAL AND SENTENCE JN THE 
CITY OF HAVANA, ISLAND OF. CUBA 



OF 



JULIO SANGUILY 



fi CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



BY 



JOSE IGNACIO RODRIGUEZ 

COUNSEL FOR THE PRISONER IN THE 
CITY OF WASHINGTON 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

PRESS OF W. F. ROBERTS 

1897 






^ Y^C&, l^C-Zg) 



THE CASE 



OF THE 



ARREST, TRIAL AND SENTENCE IN THE 
CITY OF HAVANA, ISLAND OF CUBA 



OF 



JULIO SANGUILY 

A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



BY 

JOSE IGNACIO RODRIGUEZ 

> / 

COUNSEL FOR THE PRISONER IN THE 
CITY OF WASHINGTON 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

PRESS OF W. F. ROBERTS 

1897 



Hoes Collection 

190163 

1912 



.5 I? 









THE CASE 

OF THE ARREST, TRIAL AND SENTENCE IN THE CITY 
OF HAVANA, ISLAND OF CUBA, OF 

JULIO SANGUILY, 

A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The case of Julio Sanguily, a citizen of the United States 
of America, arrested and tried in Havana, Island of Cuba, on 
a charge of political character, did not begin to attract, to any- 
practical extent at least, the attention of the people in this 
country, until after it had gone successfully through its most 
dangerous stages. 

Fortunately for the prisoner, the action in his favor of Mr. 
Richard Olney, Secretary of State of the United States of 
America, at all times prompt, patriotic and energetic, and the 
action of his lawyers in Washington, and in Havana, as well 
as in Madrid, always firm, calm, conscientious, inspired by no 
other sentiment than the good of their client and absolutely 
and completely disinterested, were never hampered, to any 
amount worth mentioning, by outside interposition of any kind, 
until the very moment in which, through skillful diplomatic 
management, the release of Sanguily from imprisonment, with- 
out further suffering or humiliation, had been secured. 

But that moment was one of extreme perplexity, which the 
friends of Sanguily will not easily forget. Through an exube- 
rant effusion of patriotic zeal and most commendable humani- 
tarian feelings on the part of certain members of the United 
States Senate ; — through a noble, although misguided, senti- 



ment of generous compassion, industriously worked up in their 
minds, and in the minds of the kind hearted people of this 
country, by wilful misrepresentation of the facts of the case, 
and by stories propagated by false friends and intruders about 
wrongs and sufferings and indignities perpetrated upon the 
prisoner, which in fact were never perpetrated or attempted to 
be perpetrated ; — through the desire of certain Cuban agitators, 
without authority to speak for the prisoner, of posing as his 
friends, urging extreme measures, and precipitating, if possible, 
a conflict between the United States and Spain, aiming at no 
other end and seeking no other thing than the advance of the 
cause in the advocation of which they were engaged ; — through 
the temptation into which many a distinguished public man of 
this country seemed to have been led of converting a case, 
which involved the liberty and perhaps the life of a citizen of 
the United States of America, into an instrument of opposition 
to the ideas and principles represented by President Cleveland 
and his Secretary of State, Mr. Olney ; — through the vocifera- 
tion of certain part of the press ; — and through many other 
causes and circumstances, a condition of things, which might 
have proved fatal, was created at once. A measure of doubtful 
justice, and of more than questionable efficiency, calculated 
perhaps more to irritate Spain and embroil the United States of 
America in a war with that nation, than to save Sanguily, and 
grounded upon an imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case, 
was attempted to be rushed through the United States Senate, 
exactly at the same time in which the determination already 
reached by Spain to comply with the wishes of the United 
States of America and set Julio Sanguily at liberty was being 
carried into execution. 

Thanks to Divine Providence, through the righteous attitude 
of the State Department ; — through the firm stand of some Hon- 
orable Senators, who were then called ' ' organs of the Governor- 
General of Cuba, or of the Queen of Spain," and against whom 
the friends of the measure acknowledged to have used " a little 



3 

by- word of bandinage ;" through the cooperation of the Spanish 
Minister ; and perhaps through the earnest appeal of the pris- 
oner's counsel to the Honorable Chairman of the Senate Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, — the crisis was averted, and the 
most gracious act of Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, 
to whom Sanguily personally was not absolutely a stranger, (*) 
could be carried into effect in Havana, without the slightest 
difficulty. 

When the echo of the speeches which were made in the 
Senate and of the applauses which their most fiery passages 
had elicited from the galleries, had not as yet died out, San- 
guily, already a free man, was joining his family, and prepar- 
ing to leave the Island of Cuba. 

Warm hearts and cool heads had once more overpowered the 
furies of blind excitement. 

As an Honorable Senator, who represents in part in the 
Federal Congress one of the most enlightened and law abiding 
States of this powerful Union, — a State, however, which has the 
misfortune of being in this respect a house divided within itself, 
as the other Honorable Senator who completes its representa- 
tion in that high body radically differs from his colleague in 
many matters of importance, — did not hesitate to declare in the 



(*) Subsequently to the compromise which put an end to the Cuban war 
of independence of 1868-1878, Sanguily went to Spain and had the honor 
to be presented in Madrid to Her Majesty the Queen Regent. She was 
pleased to have with him a long conference, in which she treated him 
with the utmost kindness. She invited him to be seated during the 
whole time he was in her presence, and asked him many questions about 
himself, about his wounds, about Cuba, and about the motives which 
had prompted him to go to war against Spain. Noticing that he inad- 
vertently had omitted in one of his answers to address her as "Your 
Majesty," and had used the ordinary Spanish "Usted," equivalent 
to the English "you," a mistake which somewhat embarrassed him 
for a moment, she told him with a smile not to give her any more her 
Royal title of honor. And when dismissing him, and wishing him good 
health and prosperity, she gave him the permission to write to her, 
directly, whenever he desired to have some favor granted, and indicated 
the channel through which his communication should reach her hands. 



effervescence of his rhetoric that the action of Sanguily's law- 
yer had been " exceedingly wicked and unjust;" (*) as the 
discussion in the Senate during the stormy session of the 25th 
of February, 1897, evinced a most extraordinary misapprehen- 
sion of facts, which it is important to correct ; as the principles 
of law, both international and municipal, involved in the case 
have not been settled and in all probability shall have again to 
be discussed ; as the interest which this case has excited justi- 
fies a professional inquiry into its merits, a study of its features 
in its judicial as well as in its diplomatic branch, and a com- 
parison between it and other cases of analogous character which 
are historical and to which both the United States Government 
and the Government of Spain were parties ; and as the neces- 
sity to do justice to whom justice is due is recognized by all, 
specially amidst the fair minded righteous communities which 
form this Union, — the writer of the present pages has not 
deemed to be improper to appear before the public and submit 
them to its judgment. 

May they be read in the same spirit of abhorrence of injustice 
in all its forms, and of love of truth, pure unsophisticated 
truth, in which they have been written. 

I 

THE ARREST OF SANGUILY, ITS CAUSES, REAL AND 

ALLEGED, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER 

WHICH IT WAS MADE. 

Julio Sanguily, a Cuban by birth, and a man of great promi- 
nence in the Cuban War of Independence of 1868-1878, in 
which he served with particular distinction as a Cuban Major 
General and had occasion to display very often his exceptional 
military ability and his almost legendary courage, was arrested 
in his house, in the city of Havana, Island of Cuba, where he 
had been living for some years in union with his family, at 



(*) Mr. Wii,i<iam P. Fryk, from Maine. Congressional Record, Feb- 
ruary 25, 1897. Page 2383. 



5 

about seven o'clock in the morning of Sunday the 24th of 
February, 1895. 

This arrest, which had been ordered by the Governor-General 
of Cuba, on the ground which will be explained hereafter, was 
made quietly, without any unnecessary display of force or 
harsh treatment, but on the contrary with as much respectful 
consideration towards the prisoner as it was posible under the 
circumstances, by Colonel Don Jose Paglieri, the Chief of the 
Havana Police, upon whom it had befallen to fulfill such an 
unpleasant duty. 

Sanguily was taken in a carriage from his home to the 
Police Headquarters, where he was seen by his brother, a 
distinguished Cuban scholar and jurist, and from there he was 
transferred, a short while afterwards to Fortress La Cabana, 
where he was left, locked up in a cell or casemate, to await 
the action of a court martial. 

To understand this arrest, as well as others which were 
made contemporarily, the fact must not be forgotten that the 
day before, Saturday the 23d of February, 1895, the whole 
territory of the Island of Cuba had been placed practically 
under the empire of Martial L,aw. Upon the ground that ' ' a 
few ungrateful men, impelled by immeasurable ambition, having 
no worthy flag, and assisted and seconded perhaps by people 
unfriendly to labor, and even by criminals, were inviting a 
civil war, the greatest calamity which can befall a civilized 
people," His Excellency Don Emilio Calleja e Isasi, a Lieuten- 
ant-General in the Spanish Army and then the Governor-Gen- 
eral of the Island, had issued on that date, a solemn proclamation, 
as usual in such cases, suspending practically all constitutional 
guarantees, and directing the so-called Law of Public Order of 
April 23d, 1870, to be put in operation and enforced at once as 
the paramount law of the land, throughout the whole Cuban 
territory. 

A translation into English of the said proclamation and of 
some important articles of the Law of Public Order referred to 



6 

by it, transmitted to the State Department by Mr. R. O. Wil- 
liams the United States Consul-General at Havana, with his 
dispatch of February 26th, 1895, and printed in Document No. 
224 of the House of Representatives, 54th Congress, 1st session, 
pages 13 to 15, shows to what extent, under the spur of self 
defense and public safety the powers of the Governor-General 
had then been stretched. Whether this measure was wise ; 
whether it was taken under a misapprehension of the magni- 
tude of the movement or its intrinsic force; whether it was in- 
spired by that feeling of distrust which lies at the very bottom 
of all the troubles between Spain and Cuba ; whether it served 
only, through inaugurating an era of violence which in its 
subsequent developments has tantalized the world, to infuse 
life into a movement which was not born in the country, 
which when imported there found no followers, which needed 
to be " rammed down through the throats of the people as the 
load of a musket is rammed into its barrel ", (*) and which, 
if successful as far as the annihilating almost totally the resour- 
ces and the wealth of Cuba is concerned, has owed its success 
exclusively to Spanish mistakes, prompted by criminal pride 
or blindness (f), — are questions which do not belong to this 



(*) The words quoted in the text are a correct translation of those ut- 
tered in Spanish, in a moment of anger and disappointment, by the 
Dominican Maximo Gomez when after invading the province of Puerto 
Principe he saw no disposition on the part of the people to join him. 

(t) Consul-General Williams in forwarding to the State Department the 
translations referred to in the text said: "The insurrectional movements 
that have given rise to the measures of the Governor-General seem to be 
limited to a very small number of persons, as shown by the prompt 
action of the three political parties engrossing the greatest part of the 
population and really representing the entire planting, industrial and 
commercial interests, as well as the professional classes of the Island; 
though it cannot be denied that poverty induced by the cumulative effects 
of the erroneous economic system long established here has brought 
about discontent among the working classes, since the principal export- 
able productions of the Island, sugar and tobacco are very depressed in 
their exchangeable values. This has brought on low and precarious wages, 



place and are not attempted to be discussed here. But the fact 
that it was taken, and that through it the situation of Cuba 
was changed from one of orderly administration of law into 
another of military rule and more or less ruthless violence, 
must necessarily be borne in mind, if a complete idea of all the 
circumstances attending this case is to be formed intelligently. 
In justice to Governor General Calleja it must be stated also 
that this method adopted by him to deal with the situation in 
Cuba, and this arresting people and lodging them in fortresses 
for alleged sympathies with rebels, without paying extra atten- 
tion to individual rights, was not a novel process, exclusively 
Spanish, or the invention of which was traceable to him 
personally. In no country in the civilized world situations of 
this character fail to present themselves together with the 
circumstances out of which they arise. And even in these 
United States, where individual liberty is not a theory but an 
actual fact, where the individual citizen is the master and the 
constituted authorities, even the highest in the social order, 
acknowledge without difficulty that they are the servants, and 
where the man who is naturally inclined to vex and tyrannize his 
fellow being is rather an uncommon exception, the exhibition of 
arbitrariness and rash proceedings, when the moment of danger 



while at the same time important provisions and clothing are very high, 
and in unfavorable disproportion to the earnings of the workmen."— 
Doc. No. 224, House of Representatives, 54th Congress, 1st session, page 
14. 

Marshall Martinez Campos in one of his speeches in the Spanish Senate, 
explained that hunger had been and continued to be a cause of the pro- 
gress of the war in Cuba. — "More than 50,000 men," he said, "at Las 
Villas and at Matanzas had been left (when the war commenced) without 
a mouthful of bread and without resources of any kind, as the preceding 
crop had scarcely yielded what was necessary to meet the expenses, 
and as all work for the present one had been suspended. There being in 
the country no saving habits, no cooperative associations, nothing which 
could relieve the situation, the forced idleness of these men turned to be 
a serious affliction, which imparts to the rebellion, specially at this mo- 
ment, when all work in the small farms has been given up, a most 
pavorous character." — {El Pais, Habana, July 28, 1896.) 



8 

arrived, might challenge comparison. If the Appleton Ameri- 
can Annual Cyclopaedia, volume corresponding to 1861, article 
Habeas Corpus, states the truth, the situation which existed in 
this country, as far as individual liberty was concerned, when 
the war of the secession broke out, might serve to demonstrate, 
if demonstration should be needed, that human nature is 
always the same, and that it ends after all by asserting itself. 
The article above cited contains a full description of the 
proceedings resorted to at that time, and a list of the citizens, 
175 in number, who were arrested and transported to Fort 
I,afayette, N. Y., between the 20th of July and the 19th of 
October 1861, without authority of law, by mere executive 
decree, which in many cases consisted simply in a telegraphic 
order. 

It must be stated also that the apprehensions felt by the 
Governor-General, as set forth in his proclamation, soon proved 
to be well founded ; — and that no longer period than twenty-four 
hours was required to elapse, before the dreadful calamity to 
which he had referred put in its appearance. The fact must 
not be forgotten that on that memorable 24th of February, 1895, 
on which Sanguily was arrested, the revolution which now 
counts fifty-two months of existence broke out in Cuba. 

According to an affidavit, or certified statement, of Governor- 
General Calleja, dated March 25th, 1895, on file in the record 
of the case, the arrest of Sanguily was ordered upon confiden- 
tial reports, which convinced the Governor- General that the 
prisoner had been conspiring against the Government of Spain, 
and was to throw his sword and the prestige of his name in the 
cause of the rebellion. 

These are the textual words of the affidavit : ' 'As to Don 
Julio Sanguily and Don Jose Maria Aguirre, it is known to 
me, through confidential communications, both from this capi- 
tal (Havana) and from abroad, that they were promoters of 
the separatist rebellion, and that it was said that they were to 
place themselves at the head of the insurrectionary movement 



in the provinces of Havana, Matanzas and Santa Clara. That 
their whole conduct which was closely watched by the police 
also proved this. And that it was certain that they main- 
tained relations and correspondence with the revolutionary- 
Junta at New York, with the workingmen abroad (meaning 
probably the Cuban cigarmakers of Key West, Tampa, and 
other cities of the United States of America) and with the 
separatist committees of the provinces of the Island of Cuba, 
lastly, that by the same confidential channel I have received 
more evidence concerning their operations, and particularly 
their participation in the acquisition of munitions of war ; but 
as these proofs are given in confidential communications, I 
abstain from making them public." (Doc. No. 104, Senate, 
54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 56.) 

This Don Jose Maria Aguirre, to whom the affidavit refers, 
is the same JosiO Maria Timoteo Aguirre, citizen of the 
United States of America, who was arrested in Havana, on the 
same day as Sanguily, just at the moment in which he was 
boarding a train to go to the country, who through the 
earnest efforts of the United States Government was released 
from imprisonment on September 5th of the same year and sent 
to New York, who immediately afterwards went back to Cuba 
to command the insurgent forces of the province of Matanzas, 
and who recently died there. 

The correspondence in regard to the case of Mr. Aguirre, — 
and also to the case of Mr. Francisco Carrillo, another Cuban 
naturalized in the United States of America, arrested on Feb- 
ruary 27th, 1895, released through the interposition of the 
State Department on May 30th of the same year, and now 
fighting in Cuba, — can be found in Document No. 224, House 
of Representatives, 54th Congress, 1st Session, from pages 90 
to in, and 133 to 144, respectively. 



10 

II 

AMERICAN INTERPOSITION. 

It is shown by the record that in the afternoon of the same 
day on which Julio Sanguily was arrested, his brother Don 
Manuel Sanguily, called at the residence of Mr. R. O. Williams, 
United States Consul General at Havana, brought to his 
attention that the prisoner was an American citizen by natural- 
ization, and requested him to intervene in his favor. 

Mr. Williams, who had not been that day at the Consulate, 
because it was Sunday, went at once to ascertain upon exami- 
nation of his books whether the American citizenship, invo- 
cated by Sanguily 's brother, was well established ; and he found 
that in fact Julio Sanguily had been admitted to be a citizen 
of the United States of America by a decree of the Superior 
Court of the City of New York dated August 6th, 1878, that 
he had gone to Cuba with an American passport dated on the 
following day, that upon his arrival in Havana he had regis- 
tered himself at the Consulate as an American, and that the 
Governor General of the Island had provided him with a 
certificate of identity, or cidula personal as it is called, dated 
August 22nd, 1878, wherein his American national character 
was recognized. 

Upon this evidence, and in fulfillment of his duty, Mr. 
Williams prepared himself right away to bring these facts to 
the knowledge of Governor-General Calleja, and request him 
to extend to the prisoner all the rights and privileges secured 
by treaty for the citizens of the United States of America, when 
arrested and tried in Spanish territory, which as will be shown 
hereafter chiefly consist in being exempted from military juris- 
diction, and being tried by civil courts, with the right to appoint 
advocates and solicitors and other agents, having free access to 
be present at the proceedings and at the taking of all the ex- 
aminations and evidence which may be exhibited in the trial. 

Mr. Williams called, early in the morning of Monday, the 
25th of February, 1895, on tne Governor- General, represented 



II 

to him verbally all that was proper and pertinent in regard to 
the matter, and announced that some time in the same day, or 
the following, he would submit his representations in writing. 
The Governor- General who, as Mr. Williams says (despatch of 
March 23, 1895, printed in Document No. 104, Senate, 54th 
Congress, 2nd Session, page 7), "was surprised on learning 
the fact of the American citizenship of Sanguily having been 
recognized by the Governments of the United States and Spain, ' ' 
received his information with unmistakable signs of displeasure. 
It appears from a despatch of May 6th, 1895, printed on page 
13 and the following of the Document above quoted, that the 
Governor-General answered Mr. Williams "in an outburst of 
most violent language and gesture, saying that it was a dis- 
grace to the American flag for the Government of the United 
States to protect these men, who, it was notoriously known, 
were conspirators against the Government of Spain, and in still 
more violent language and gesture that American citizens were 
openly conspiring in the United States against Spain, and that 
he would shoot every one caught with arms in hand in any 
attempt against the Government of the Island, regardless of 
the consequences. ' ' 

Such an exhibition of temper which was repeated in subse- 
quent interviews held between Mr. Williams and Governor- 
General Calleja, on February 27th and March 2d, 1895, ac ~ 
companied by threats, more or less openly made, that Mr. 
William's exequatur would be withdrawn, or that the Wash- 
ington Government would be requested to remove him, — 
although highly improper in an official of his rank, and rather 
unusual in a man, who personally was never accused, even by 
his bitterest political enemies, except of being too lenient and 
considerate, — did not prevent the communication of the United 
States Consul- General from being received and given due 
attention. 

The idea of Governor-General Calleja was that through the 
interposition of the United States Consul-General in favor of 



12 

Sanguily, Aguirre, Carrillo and others, the authority he had 
assumed for dealing with a situation which he deemed to be 
critical was snatched from his hands. And as he thought, 
right or wrong, that that authority was necessary to save the 
situation, he at first was angered by the sudden obstacle which 
sprung up before him, and then tried to overcome it. (*) 

The first answer in writing which Mr. Williams received in 
regard to the case of Julio Sanguily was dated on March ist, 
1895, an d it was to the effect that before extending to the pris- 



(*) The explanation which Governor Calleja himself gave of this inci- 
dent, in the Spanish Senate, on July 4th, 1896, is characteristic, and may 
be read with interest : 

"As soon as I got rid of 'legal restrictions' {trabas legates), — when 
in view of the incoming imminent rebellion I had decided upon my own 
exclusive responsibility to place the Island under martial law and cause the 
Law of Public Order to be put into operation ; — when scarcely I had be- 
gun to enjoy the freedom of action which this Law permits, to use such 
means as I deemed conducive to save the threatened interests of the 
country, and to cause the arrest to be made of the most prominent leaders 
of the movement, among them three of the greatest experience, import- 
ance and prestige ', who were to* place themselves at the head of the insurg- 
ents in Havana, Las Villas and Matanzas ; when scarcely I had suc- 
ceeded in securing the incarceration of Sanguily and Aguirre at the fort- 
resses of La Cabana and El Morro, and of Carrillo at the Volunteers Bar- 
racks at Remedios ; — just at the moment in which these measures became 
known to the public, which applauded them, because it was self-evident 
that without those three leaders the revolution could not succeed in root- 
ing itself or having any organization at all in the Central and Western 
districts of the Island ; — the United States Consul General suddenly 
made his appearance at the door of my office, and claimed in favor of those 
three conspirators the benefits and privileges of the protocol of 1877. 

' ' I cannot conceal from the Senate that I had to make a great effort to 
refrain at that moment, owing to the exigencies of my official position, 
the impulses of my mind, which impelled me to allow my indignation to 
burst out, for the contrariousness and deception which a claim of that 
nature, made at that moment, and in favor of these particular individ- 
uals had made me experience. But the claim, however irritating, was 
well founded, and I was forced to respect the protocol of 1877, which 
under express Royal Order had to be respected. The only thing I 
could do, was to use a dilatory plea, and demand the proof that those 
three men had complied with the registration provisions of the Law on 
Aliens, etc., etc." 



13 

oner the privileges of the treaty, proper evidence had to be 
given of his registration as a citizen of the United States of 
America, in the books kept to that effect in the office of the 
Secretary of the Govern or- General. 

Mr. Williams could furnish this evidence on March 4th, fol- 
lowing, and the Governor- General had then to yield. The 
letter which his Secretary, Senor Don Kstanislao de Antonio, 
wrote to Mr. Williams, on March i6th, acknowledges the 
fact that Julio Sanguily was a citizen of the United States of 
America, and explains that his case had been ordered to be 
transferred from the military to the civil jurisdiction, and that 
instructions had been given to the Judge Advocate entrusted 
by the Captain-General with the investigation of the charges 
made against the prisoner, to inhibit himself from the cogni- 
zance of the case in favor of the civil authority. 

The action of Mr. Williams was declared by the State 
Department, March nth, 1895, to be correct and proper, and 
was approved. 

In view of these facts, the accusation often made, in this 
case, as well as in others, in newspapers and elsewhere, that 
Mr. Williams was slow and reluctant in the fulfillment of his 
duties, as far as protecting American citizens was concerned, 
and that the administration of Mr. Cleveland, with Mr. Olney, 
Secretary of State, allowed American citizens to be deprived 
by Spain of their treaty rights, ignominiously falls to the 
ground. All that properly could be done in this line was 
instantly done and done with success. 

Ill 

THE KIDNAPPING COMPLICATION. 

Just at the moment in which these things were happening, 
and the transfer of Julio Sanguily from military to civil juris- 
diction had been secured, a complication of the most trouble- 
some character presented itself. 



14 

It had happened that a man of high standing in Cuba, by 
the name of Don Antonio Fernandez de Castro, had been kid- 
napped by a bandit and released upon the payment of fifteen 
thousand dollars. The investigation of that scandalous affair 
had been entrusted, under the law usual in such cases and for 
such offenses, to a military Judge Instructor, who had found, 
or thought to have found, that the perpetrator of that crime, 
the bandit Manuel Garcia, who called himself ' ' The King of 
the rural districts ' ' {El Rey de los Campos) and had terrorized 
the country for a period of considerable extent, had been in 
correspondence with the leaders of the ' ' Cuban Revolutionary 
Party ' ' in New York, and received from them a commission 
as Colonel in the Cuban Liberating Army. The money paid 
for the ransom of Senor Fernandez de Castro was to go, it was 
stated, partly to the bandit himself, and partly to the Cuban 
revolutionary agents to buy arms and ammunition. 

It is not shown very clearly upon what ground the suspicion 
arose that Sanguily was connected, not of course with the 
kidnapping transaction itself, or with any personal association 
with Manuel Garcia, but with the disposition of that portion 
of the ransom's money which was to go to the benefit of the 
insurgent cause. A man named Don Gerardo Portela, who 
had been arrested as an accomplice of the bandit Garcia, was 
supposed to have been in relation with Sanguily concerning that 
matter, and upon that supposition, more or less groundless, the 
investigation branched out so as to ascertain to what extent, 
if at all, the prisoner was guilty of that additional offense. 

This was the reason why the Judge Advocate who was 
conducting the kidnapping case,— a case entirely independent 
from the one for "rebellion, " — directed Sanguily to be retained 
in prison, at his disposal also, to await his action in the new 
affair. 

Such an unexpected complication brought again to his feet 
the United States Consul-General at Havana. The right and 
privilege of an American citizen not to be subject, while in the 



15 

dominions of Spain, to military jurisdiction, is as much vested 
in him when the offense with which he is charged is political, 
as when it is not. In this kidnapping affair Sanguily was as 
much beyond the jurisdiction of the Judge Advocate as he was 
in the case for alleged "rebellion. '' And upon this ground 
Mr. Williams promptly based his protest. 

This additional holding of Julio Sanguily took place on 
April 25th, 1895, and twenty-four hours afterwards, Mr. Wil- 
liams had already communicated with the Governor-General, 
and made the request that this new case, if continued, should 
be transferred like the other to the ordinary jurisdiction of a 
civil court. 

At the date of this letter of Mr. Williams, April 25th, 1895, 
General Calleja had ceased to be the Governor-General of the 
Island, and had been succeeded by Marshall Don Arsenio Mar- 
tinez Campos. But as this distinguished personage, after land- 
ing, not at Havana but at Santiago de Cuba, on the 19th of 
April, had taken the field immediately and entrusted the exec- 
utive functions, at the capital of the Island, to General Don Jose 
Arderius, the Segundo Cabo, or Second Chief, it befell on the 
latter in his capacity of Acting Governor-General, to answer 
Mr. Williams' communication. And he did so directly, by 
official letter of May 7th, 1895, in which he explained the real 
nature of the action taken by the Judge- Advocate who was in 
charge of the kidnapping case, and informed Mr. Williams that 
on the 4th of the same month he had ordered the new case to 
be transferred, like the old one, from military to civil jurisdic- 
tion, and that the Judge-Advocate who was conducting the 
investigation had been instructed to discontinue it, in so far as 
Sanguily was concerned, and to cause a copy to be made of all 
the papers and records, or of the part thereof which referred to 
Sanguily, to be forwarded to the civil court. 

This decision of Acting Governor-General Arderius, while 
in strict compliance with the wishes of the United States Con- 
sul-General and with the provisions of the treaty, improved 



i6 

only pro forma the condition of Sanguily. He continued to be 
held on two different charges, subject to two different trials 
conducted by two different civil courts, and compelled to await 
two sentences. And this situation was serious, because the 
new case practically operated at all times as an obstruction for 
the prompt disposition of the old one and prevented Sanguily 
more than once from being set at liberty. 

All the efforts of Sanguily' s lawyers, in the political case, to 
secure the release of their client, either on bail, or through the 
application of a kind of amnesty which Governor-General 
Calleja had granted three days after Sanguily' s imprisonment, 
or through personal favor of the Governor- General (*) or 
otherwise, stumbled invincibly against the rock of the kidnap- 
ping case, and failed invariably. 

If the whole thing was planned, as some expressions of 
General Calleja furnished ground to think, for the deliberate 
purpose of keeping Sanguily in a safe place, and preventing him 



(*) There is evidence of undisputable character, in the possession of 
Mr. Sanguily, that Governor-General Calleja himself had twice made up 
his mind to set the prisoner at liberty. It appears, nevertheless, from 
independent sources, that this intention was not carried into effect the 
first time, owing to the rumor, whether founded or unfounded, which had 
reached the ears of the Governor-General, that a noisy demonstration was 
being prepared by the friends of the prisoner to celebrate his liberation, 
a part of the program having been to parade Sanguily in the streets of 
Havana, with a band of music at the head of the procession ; — and the 
second time, because of the pendency of the kidnapping case. 

Marshal Martinez Campos was also highly inclined to release San- 
guily. The latter feels sure, and felt so all the time, that if he had suc- 
ceeded in having an interview with that distinguished personage, who 
honored him with his friendship, he would have been released. Sanguily 
wrote to him once or twice, asking him to come and see him at his cell 
in Fortress La Cabana, but he had no answer. He sent for Marshal 
Martinez Campos' son, the Duke de la Seo de Urgel, who was also his 
friend, and he at once came to see him. Sanguily urged him to induce 
his father to call upon him, and he said that he would try. But Marshal 
Martinez Campos was afraid of himself and never came. He said more 
than once : "If I see 'that boy' I would not be able to overcome the 
temptation of letting him out of the castle. ' ' 



17 

when free from going and joining the insurgents, as Aguirre 
and Carrillo did, the fact must be acknowledged that the plan 
was successful. 

During the course of the debate which took place in the Span- 
ish Senate, on July 4th, 1896, and has been previously referred 
to, General Calleja expressed himself as follows: "When I 
ceased to be the Chief Commander in Cuba, the question that the 
treaty should be complied with in regard to Sanguily and 
Aguirre, imprisoned respectively at La Cabana Fortress, and 
the Morro Castle, and that the proceedings against them should 
be transferred to the ordinary jurisdiction, had been decided. 
/ had taken nevertheless my precautions to protract the proceed- 
ings as long as possible. I surrendered my office, and I do not 
know what has afterwards happened." Seiior Batanero, an- 
other Senator, suggested then that all the prisoners thus bene- 
fitted by the treaty, had gone to join the insurgents. — And to 
this General Calleja replied : — ' ' As far as Sanguily is concerned, 
he is still in prison ; but if he did not go like the others to join 
the insurgents, it was because I had found out some way of hav- 
ing him mixed up in a cause for clandestine introduction and 
sale of arms to the enemy, in which many persons were com- 
plicated." 

This cause was probably no other than the one for the kidnap- 
ping of Don Antonio Fernandez de Castro, or better to say the 
incident thereof relating to the purchase of arms with the money 
paid by him for his ransom, in which as explained by Consul- 
General Williams' telegram of March 30th, 1896, to Mr. Rock- 
hill, Assistant Secretary of State, there were some twenty 
persons in addition to Mr. Sanguily charged with participa- 
tion of some kind in that business. 

The kidnapping proceedings were quashed by the Court- 
martial in regard to all the defendants subject to its jurisdic- 
tion, on or before March 30th, 1896, when Mr. Williams tele- 
graphed as above stated, and by the civil court, in regard to 
Sanguily, on April 23d following. (Telegram of Mr. Williams 
to Mr. Rockhill, April 24th, 1896.) 



iS 

The fact that this result was not obtained until such a late 
date, when Sanguily had already received his first sentence, — 
December 2nd, 1895, in the case for rebellion, — and when this 
case had been taken on a writ of error to the Supreme Court 
at Madrid, shows how efficient the way found out by General 
Calleja to prevent Sanguily from being released, practically 
proved to be. "If the sentence is repealed," General Calleja 
said, "it is clear that Sanguily will go and join his com- 
panions." (*) 



(*) Here is the official record of this portion of the debate, as set forth 
in the Extracto Oficial, Session of the Spanish Senate, July 4, 1896, 
No. 42, pages 5 and 6 : — 

El General Calleja. Al cesar yo en el mando deje" prejuzgada la 
cuesti6n de que se cumpliera el tratado conrespecto a Sanguily y Aguirre, 
presos en el Morro y en la Cabana, pasando los procedimientos a la juris- 
dicci6n ordinaria. Sin embargo de que yo habia tornado mis precaucio- 
nes para dilatar todo lo posible el procedimiento. Entregue" el mando, 
6 ignoro lo ocurrido despues. 

El Senor Batanero. Estan todos al frente de sus partidas. 

El General Calleja. Todos, no ; pero puede colegirse lo occur- 
rido, porque he leido repetidas veces en los peri6dicos que Aguirre y 
Carrillo estan en la manigua al frente de dos importantes partidas insur- 
rectas. 

El Senor Abarzuza. Sea de ello lo que quiera, nosotros los deja- 
mos presos. 

El General Calleja. En cuanto a Sanguily estd preso ; pero si 
no se marchb tambiin, fuk porque yo hallS medio de que quedara encar- 
tado en una causa en que habia muchos complicados, por introducci6n 
clandestina y venta de armas al enemigo ; fue sentenciado, y creo que 
pende del Tribunal Supremo el recurso de casaci6n de la sentencia dictada 
por la Audiencia de la Habana ; y claro estd que si la sentencia se casa, 
Sanguily se ird con sus companeros. 

(TRANSLATION.) 

General Calleja. When I transmitted to my successor the com- 
mand of the Island, the question, whether the treaty (the Cushing-Calde- 
ron-Collantes Protocol of 1877) was or was not to be complied with in 
regard to Sanguily and Aguirre, imprisoned respectively in the Morro 



19 

It is not by any means a new thing for law and reason to be 
silent in times of war — silent enim leges inter arma. But this 
trumped up business, which bothered Sanguily from April 25, 
1895, to April 26, 1896, seems to have exceeded the limits of 
endurance. Judging from all the appearances the Spanish 
authorities themselves felt ashamed of it. 



Castle and Fortress La Cabana, had been settled, and the proceedings 
against them had been transferred to the ordinary courts ; but I had 
taken my precautions for securing the delay of said proceedings as much 
as possible. After I surrendered the command, I do not know what 
happened. 

Senor BaTanero. All the prisoners are now with the insurgents. 

GENERAL CaiJvEJA. Not all ; but, judging from what has happened, 
it is easy to suppose what would have happeued also with Sanguily — I 
have read in the newspapers that Aguirre and Carillo are now at the 
head of two important bands of insurgents. 

Senor Abazuza. The fact is that we left them all in prison. 

Genera^ CaUvEJA. As to Sanguily, I will say that if he did not go 
with the others to the insurgent camp, it was because I found out a way 
to mix him up in a cause for clandestine importation of arms and the 
sale thereof to the enemy in which many persons were complicated. The 
Audiencia of Havana has passed a sentence against him, which 
now pends before the Supreme Court here on a writ of error. It is clear 
that if the sentence of the Audiencia of Havana is repealed, Sanguily will 
go to the field with his companions. 



20 
IV 

THE TREATY RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS WHEN 
TRIED IN SPANISH TERRITORY. 

Article VII of the treaty between the United States and 
Spain, signed at San Lorenzo el Real, on October 27th, 1795, 
and proclaimed after due ratification and exchange on August 
2nd, 1796, contains the following provision : 

' ' and in all cases of seizure, detention, or arrest, for debts con- 
tracted, or offenses committed by any citizen or subject of 
the one party within the jurisdiction of the other, the same 
shall be made and prosecuted by order and authority of law 
only, and according to the regular course of proceeding usual 
in such cases. The citizens and subjects of both parties shall 
be allowed to employ such advocates, solicitors, notaries, 
agents and factors as they may judge proper, in all their 
affairs, and in all their trials at law, in which they may be 
concerned, before the tribunals of the other party ; and such 
agents shall have free access to be present at the proceedings 
in such causes, and at the taking of all examinations and 
evidence which may be exhibited in the said trials." 

Among the papers sent by Mr. Pinckney, the American 
negotiator of that treaty, together with the treaty itself, to Mr. 
Randolph, the United States Secretary of State, October 28, 
1795, there is a memorandum explanatory of each article of the 
compact (American State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. I, 
page 545) which, in respect to this Article VII, reads as follows: 

"Art. 7. The first part taken from the 16th of Prussia; 
the latter part I added because I considered it a good stipula- 
tion in all situations, but particularly so in Spain." 

Mr. Pinckney alluded probably to the methods of the Inqui- 
sition and of other Spanish tribunals having criminal juris- 
diction, where the secrecy of the proceedings was carried to 
the utmost extremity, where torture was resorted to as a means 
of investigation, and where the defense of the prisoners was 
minimized and actually reduced in most cases to a mere pro 
forma transaction. But he scarcely could have formed such a 



21 

complete idea of the correctness of his judgment in deeming 
said last part of the provision to be good, as subsequent events, 
specially in the Island of Cuba, have fully demonstrated. 

Cuba and Spain had gone together, running always the same 
fate politically, until the moment, sadly to be remembered by 
Cuba, in which Spain, terrorized by the loss of her sovereignty 
over Mexico, Central America and the whole of South America, 
outside of Brazil, decided to treat Cuba as if she were an enemy, 
placing her perpetually under martial law, and subjecting her 
in all things to the autocratic rule of a Military Commander. 
Spain believed that in this way she could prevent Cuba from 
following the example of the other Spanish colonies and pro- 
claiming and securing her independence. 

That decision of Spain was carried out by means of two steps 
of great significance. First, the Royal Order of May 28th, 
1825, which was the Public L,aw of Cuba between that date 
and February 10th, 1878, when the compromise which ended 
the war of 1 868-1878 was agreed upon. And second, the 
establishment in Havana, on March 4th of the same year, 1825, 
of a "Permanent and Executive Military Commission," with 
competent jurisdiction to take cognizance of all political cases 
and of many other cases. 

Under the Royal Order of May 28th, 1825, the Governors 
General of Cuba were given the same powers as belong in time 
of war to the governors of places besieged by an enemy. (*) 



(*)This Royal Order reads as follows : " His Majesty being fully per- 
suaded that at no time and under no circumstances whatever is there any 
possibility of weakening the principles of rectitude and love to his royal 
person which characterize your excellency, and His Majesty being desir- 
ous at the same time to guard against the difficulties which might arise 
in extraordinary cases from a division of commands, and from the com- 
plexity of powers and attributions in the respective public authorities, and 
with the important object of maintaining in your most precious island his 
legitimate sovereign authority as well as preserving public tranquility, has 
been graciously pleased in conformity with the advice of his council of 
State, to give your excellency full unrestricted power, conferring upon you 
all the faculties which by the royal ordinances are granted to the gover- 



22 

And under the Royal Order which established the Military- 
Commission as a permanent tribunal, the proceedings of the 
so-called trials for offenses subject to the jurisdiction of the 
latter, ceased to be conducted in the ordinary way of law, and 
became secret, at least in the most important stages, full of 
restrictions as to the rights of the prisoners and their defense, 
and always hasty. 

The first conflict, or at least the first serious one, which arose 
between the United States and Spain out of this peculiar condi- 
tion of things in the Island of Cuba, was caused by the trial 
and condemnation by the Military Commission in 1851, of a 



nors of cities besieged by an enemy. In consequence of this His Majesty 
gives your excellency ample and unlimited authorization, not merely to 
eject from the island and send to the peninsula any public functiona- 
ries, whatever may be their office, rank, class or condition, whose stay in 
the island may be prejudicial, or whose public or private conduct may 
arouse your suspicion, and replace them temporarily by such faithful 
servants of His Majesty as may merit all your excellency's confidence, 
but also to suspend the execution of any orders or general instructions 
whatever, emanating from any of the Departments of the Government, in 
such degree as your excellency may deem expedient for the royal service, 
such suspensions being in all cases provisional, and your excellency being 
required to give account thereof to His Majesty. In extending to your 
excellency this signal proof of his royal appreciation and of the high con- 
fidence he reposes in your well-known loyalty, His Majesty hopes that in 
worthy justification of this confidence you will display the greatest pru- 
dence and circumspection, and the most untiring activity, and trusts that 
your excellency, being by this present act of his royal bounty placed 
under a most rigid responsibility, will cause the laws to be observed, 
justice to be administered, and the faithful vassals of His Majesty to be 
protected and rewarded, and secure, furthermore, without hesitation or 
dissimulation the punishment of those who, forgetful of their obligations 
and of what they owe to the best and most beneficent of sovereigns, 
would violate their duties and give free rein to their criminal machina- 
tions against the laws and the established system of government. 

By royal order I communicate this to your excellency for your infor- 
mation. 

May God preserve your excellency many years. 

Madrid, May 28, 1825. 

AYMBRICH. 

The Captain-General of the Island of Cuba. 



23 

citizen of the United States of America, residing in Havana. 
Mr. John S. Trasher, a native of the State of Maine, tried at 
Havana "for the crime of treason " and condemned to impris- 
onment for six years at hard labor in the penitentiary at Ceuta, 
in Africa, protested against his having been subjected to 
military jurisdiction and tried by court-martial under rules of 
military procedure, all in violation of his rights and privileges 
as secured by the provisions of Article VII of the treaty ; and 
his protest was supported by the United States Government. 

But, as shown by Document No. 10, House of Representatives, 
32d Congress, ist Session, the Captain General of Cuba, then 
General Don Jose de la Concha, made the point against the said 
protest that Mr. Trasher had been tried exactly in the same man- 
ner as was provided by the treaty. The latter said that the trial 
should be conducted ' ' according to the regular course of pro- 
ceeding usual in such cases," and in Cuba there was no other 
regular and usual course of proceeding applicable to Mr. 
Trasher' s case than the proceeding of the Military Commis- 
sion. General Concha said: " The Military Commission estab- 
lished in this Island since the year 1825 is a common and 
ordinary tribunal for the trial of such crimes as are committed 
against the State. It was therefore the only authority competent 
to pass sentence upon Mr. Trasher, who stood accused of con- 
spiracy, and he (Mr. Trasher) could not have been tried by any 
other tribunal without manifest violation of the laws by which 
we are governed." (General Concha to Minister Calderon de 
la Barca, November 28, 1851; Ibid., page 24.) 

The issue was avoided and the contention closed by Spain 
granting a pardon to Mr. Trasher. 

Two years afterwards another singular contention was started 
by Count Alcoy, Spanish Secretary of State, who said to Mr. 
Barringer, Minister of the United States at Madrid, that the 
treaty of 1795 was not applicable to the colonies of Spain. 
(Ex. Doc. No. 86, House of Representatives, 33d Congress, 
1 st session, page 219.) To this Mr. Barringer replied: "As 



24 

to the great principle now for the first time invoked in bar to 
this claim, and compared with which the claim itself, though 
important to the petitioners, is as nothing, viz : that the treaty 
of 1 795 was never applicable to the Spanish colonies, I cannot 
do less than repeat my surprise at a proposition, which a review 
of all the diplomatic intercourse between Spain and the United 
States will disclose, is of the most recent origin, which is con- 
trary to what has ever been the understanding of the latter, 
and which in the opinion of the undersigned is not sustained 
by any examination of the provisions of the treaty itself, nor 
by its contemporaneous or subsequent history or construction." 
(Mr. Barringer to Count Alcoy, Madrid, March 19, 1853, 
page 222 Ibid.) 

During the ten years of the Cuban war of independence of 
1 868- 1 878, many cases occurred in which the true construction 
of the provisions of the treaty was made the subject of serious 
argument and dispute. But the matter was set at rest by 
means of an authorative expression of opinion on the part of 
the Spanish government, in so far as to its own understanding 
of the obligations imposed on it by the treaty was concerned. 

This expression of opinion was made at a conference between 
Mr. Caleb Cushing, United States Minister at Madrid, and Don 
Fernando Calderon y Collantes, Spanish Minister of State, held 
at Madrid, January 12th, 1877, and witnessed by a protocol 
which since that time has become famous. 

Senor Calderon y Collantes declared that the understanding 
of Spain of the stipulations of Article VII of the treaty of 
1795, was that "no citizen of the United States, residing in 
Spain, her adjacent islands, or her ultramarine possessions, 
charged with acts of sedition, treason or conspiracy against the 
institutions, the public security, the integrity of the territory, or 
against the Supreme Government, or any other crime whatso- 
ever, shall be subject to trial by any exceptional tribunal, but 
exclusively by the ordinary jurisdiction, except in the case of 
being captured with arms in hand." 



25 

This clear and explicit statement, which no doubt constituted 
a great victory for the United States, as it put an end to all 
former Spanish contentions, secured in favor of American citi- 
zens a privilege of great value, which the further declara- 
tions of the instrument, relating to the manner and form of the 
proceedings to be resorted to in the above mentioned trials by 
ordinary civil courts, strongly corroborated. Senor Calderon y 
Collantes said that such proceedings should be the ones provided 
for by the L,aw of April 17th, 1821, which although repealed in 
European Spain and replaced by another law called of Public 
Order, of April 23d, 1870, was nevertheless at that time the 
law in force in Cuba (*). 

Mr. Cushing in his note to Mr. Fish, Secretary of State, of 
February 4th, 1877 (Foreign Relations of the United States in 
1877, page 494), recognized that this law contained "tyran- 
nical features, of which Spain herself had had sad experience ; ' ' 
and he was right in expressing himself in this way, because 
that law of 182 1, called by all in Spain La Ley Martial, " The 
Martial Law," enacted by the liberals to tyrannize the partisans 
of absolute monarchy, had been held in abhorrence on account 
of its extreme severity since the days of its promulgation. Its 
application to Cuba by Royal Decree of March 28th, 1866, was 
due to no other thing than its cruelty and the expeditious 
way which its provisions furnished to deal with life and prop- 
erty. This law, however, and its methods of procedure were 
repealed by the Penal Code of Spain which was made appli- 
cable to Cuba on July nth, 1879, and by the Rules for the en- 
forcement of the provisions of the same code, enacted May 23d, 
1879. From the day of the promulgation of this new law, a 
new condition of things, much more liberal perhaps in this 
respect than in any other country in the world was created in 
Cuba ; and this fact must never be forgotten, if the true spirit 
of the protocol of 1877, rather than its letter, is to be attended to. 



(*) The Law of Public Order was not promulgated in Cuba until the 
24th of September, 1879. 



26 

And it was for this reason that such an expert diplomatist 
as Mr. John W. Foster, when negotiating with Spain the treaty 
of commerce, of November 18th, 1884, which was not ratified 
by the Senate of the United States, made an effort to secure 
and secured from Spain the following provision : 

' 'Article XX. The citizens of the United States in the Islands 
of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and reciprocally the Spanish subjects 
in the United States, shall enjoy for their professions, industries 
and business of whatever character, whether individually, in 
the quality of associates, or in a co-operative capacity, the 
same privileges which the citizens of the territory of their resi- 
dence enjoy, on condition, however, of their being subject to 
the laws of the country in which they reside. They shall also 
have free and easy access to the tribunals of justice to maintain 
their suits and defend their rights and claims, and the high 
contracting parties ratify by the present treaty the principles 
and provisions set forth in the protocol signed at Madrid on the 
12th of January, 1877; it being understood that it shall be ap- 
plied in all its effects to cases in which the accused are not 
more favored in respect to their defense and rights by the law 
for the application of the Penal Code in the Island of Cuba 
promulgated on the 23d of May, 1879, and that it shall be ap- 
plied in the same manner provided, when they are subject to 
military jurisdiction in virtue of the stipulation of said protocol 
hereby ratified." 

The truth is that such a choice between the two laws, 
namely the Law of 1821 and the Penal Code and the Law for 
its application of 1879, is now, and has been for some time, 
entirely unnecessary. The Law of 1821 became obsolete both 
in regard to prisoners taken with arms in hand, to be tried by 
military courts, according to military proceedings, and in re- 
gard to prisoners otherwise captured, to be tried by courts 
of ordinary jurisdiction, according to civil proceedings. And 
the fact that it became so obsolete, and that it was replaced in 
to to as to people captured with arms in hands by the Law of 
Public Order of April 23d, 1870, and as to people captured 
otherwise by the Penal Code and the Law for the application 
thereof of 1879, is certainly to be deemed a great benefit. 

None of the "tyrannical features," referred to by Mr. 



27 

Cushing, of the Law of 1821 can be found in the new laws 
which have superseded it. Even the so-called Council of War, 
which takes cognizance of the cases of prisoners captured with 
arras in hand, can hardly be considered a real court martial. (*) 
As to the proceedings according to which the ordinary prosecu- 
tions have to be conducted against prisoners captured other- 
wise, it is necessary to recognize that they are marked by great 
consideration of the rights of the defendants. 

While, for instance, under Article 32 of the Law of 182 1, the 
sentences of death are to be executed ' ' within forty-eight hours 
and the others in the shortest possible time," under the Rules 
for the application of the Penal Code (Rule 79) in case of death 
penalty, an appeal to the Supreme Court of Madrid is always 
understood to be taken by the prisoner. Said appeal may also 
be taken, although only under certain rules, against all other 
sentences. 

Under the law of 182 1 no petitions for pardon can be admitted 
or considered (Art. 33); but under the new laws no restriction 
exists as to applications for clemency. 

Judging from some statements made in the Senate and else- 
where, during the public discussion of the Sanguily case, the 
idea seems to have prevailed, that the true, genuine privi- 
lege of citizens of the United States of America, when tried 
in Spanish territory, is to be tried according to the course of 
proceeding established by the Law of April 17, 1821; and 
on this ground, for instance, complaints were made because 
Sanguily was tried by a Court consisting of five members, and 
not by a Court consisting of six members, as required by Article 
28 of the said Law of 182 1. But all of this was said and argued 
without notice having been taken that the j udicial machinery 

(*)Article 29 of of the Law of Public Order provides as follows : " This 
Council of War shall consist of four Captains of the Army appointed by 
the Military authority, of one Judge of first instance, of one Justice of the 
Peace, and of the District Attorney. If the Justice of the Peace selected 
is not a lawyer, he shall be replaced by another Justice of the Peace learned 
in the law, and if none is found the senior practicing lawyer of the 
locality where the Council is held, will fill his place" 



28 

of the law of 1821 is not the judicial machinery, immensely 
superior, of the present date, and that it was better for the pris- 
oner to be tried by five judges, with the right to appeal to the 
Supreme Court of Spain, which he used twice, than to be tried 
by six judges, whose decision was final. 

The grand point which was gained for American citizens, in 
so far as the interpretation of Article VII of the treaty of 1 795 
is concerned, consists in the fact that under no circumstances, 
and in all parts of the Spanish dominions, their trials for all 
kinds of offenses have to be conducted exclusively by ordinary 
jurisdiction, except only in case that they are captured with 
arms in hand, — and furthermore that they have the right to 
appoint lawyers or agents to whom free access has to be given 
to be present at all the stages of the proceedings, and at the 
taking of all examinations and evidence which may be made 
and used in the said trials. 
/ This is the essential point, which always has excited to the 
highest degree the anger of the Captains-General. Whatever 
may be alleged against the Cushing-Calderon y Collantes Proto- 
col of 1877, the fact remains that by the action of the Spanish 
Government, the Spanish declaration contained in it was made 
part and parcel of the Spanish I^aw, because that declaration 
of the opinion of Senor Calderon y Collantes as to the real 
meaning of Article VII of the treaty of 1795, was sanctioned 
by the King of Spain, and embodied in a Royal Order, which 
was officially communicated to the Governor-General of Cuba, 
with peremptory instructions to comply with it. And it is for 
this reason that General Calleja said that he could not help 
himself against the Protocol, and that he had to obey the 
Royal Order, no matter how unpalatable, which referred to it. 

All the other things contained in the protocol are changeable 
and of secondary character, and they must be considered in 
relation to the greatest benefit of the prisoner and to nothing 
else. The real and proper criterion to be used in these matters 
is the one which was used by the State Department, when in- 



29 

structing the United States Consul General at Havana, Novem- 
ber 9th, 189.5, m regard to Sanguily's case. It is clear for 
instance, that prisoners" have a right to demand a speedy trial ; 
but circumstances may arise in which the interests of the pris- 
oner will be better subserved by securing delay. If upon the 
arrival of those circumstances the counsel does not make all 
that is in his power to secure that delay, he may find out very 
soon that he made a mistake. Instead of ' ' defending ' ' his 
client and endeavoring to save him, he may have aided per- 
haps to secure his conviction. 

When Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Uhl, instructed 
United States Consul-General Williams, November 9th, 1895, 
to be in frequent consultation with Sanguily's lawyer, to confer 
with him freely, and to endeavor to avoid as well unseemly 
haste to Sanguily's disfavor as prolonged delays to his injury, 
he did the very best that could be legally done in this respect. 



THE TRIAL. 

Between the 16th of March, 1895, at which date the Governor- 
General decided to instruct the Judge Advocate who was inves- 
tigating the charge of ' ' rebellion ' ' against Sanguily to inhibit 
himself from the cognizance of the case in favor of the civil 
authority, and the 28th of November of the same year, at which 
date the trial of the prisoner commenced, fully eight months 
had elapsed. The record does not show why such an extra- 
ordinary delay took place, nor does it in any way remove the 
apprehension that it was unwarranted and exclusively due 
to the idea, which seems to have prevailed in this affair from 
the beginning to the end, that it was better for Spain to keep 
Sanguily within the walls of a fortress than give him an oppor- 
tunity to go away and join the insurgents. 

Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, had sent a 
telegram to Mr. Springer, Acting Consul General at Havana, 



30 

under date of June 18th, 1895, instructing him to demand that 
Sanguily would be given speedily civil trial, or else released ; 
and Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Alvey A. Adee, on Sep- 
tember 3d, 1895, had repeated the instruction, and said to Mr. 
Williams by cable, that "the Department felt compelled to 
demand (Sanguily's) immediate trial or release." 

Marshal Martinez Campos, who was no less reluctant than 
his predecessor and all other Spanish Generals and military 
officials to be restricted, when dealing with American citizens, 
on account of the treaty, raised at once a question, which was 
promising at least of long diplomatic discussion and therefore 
of long delay. In replying to Mr. Williams he stated that 
" Consuls are not vested with diplomatic functions, and cannot 
rightfully present any official remonstrations in government 
affairs," — that they could only be allowed to address the 
authorities confidentially for the purpose of inquiring into facts 
and reporting to their repective governments, — that he, the 
Governor General himself, had no authority to deal with inter- 
national questions, — and that whatever the United States Gov- 
ernment might be willing to say on the subject had to be said 
in Madrid to the Spanish Minister of State (*). 

This official communication dated September 6th, three days 
subsequent to Mr. Adee's telegram to Mr. Williams, was 
accompanied by a personal letter of the same date, wherein 
Marshal Martinez Campos called Mr. Williams ' ' My dear Sir 
and Friend, ' ' and in which he said that he took pleasure in 
personally informing Mr. Williams that Sanguily's case will 
soon be heard. 

The record shows that on the 9th of November, 1895, Assist- 
ant Secretary of State, Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, said to Consul- 
General Williams, among other things, what follows:— 

(*) The discussion of the question thus raised about the right of the 
United States Consul General at Havana to present remonstrances, — a 
question which was settled favorably to the United States, on October 
23d, 1895, can be found from page 8 to page 13 of Document No. 224, 
House of Representatives, 54th Congress, 1st session. 



3i 

"This Government has continuously asserted the right of 
Mr. Sanguily, as a citizen of the United States, to be tried on 
formulated charges by the ordinary resorts stipulated by the 
treaty of 1795 and by the protocol of 1877. This demand has 
been acceded to, and while the proceedings have been marked 
with what from our point of view appears to be extraordinary 
tardiness, I am not advised that there has been a tangible 
denial of justice in the case. It is due, however, to Mr. 
Sanguily himself, as well as to the Government which has 
necessarily intervened for his protection, that he should be 
accorded as speedy a trial as may be consistent with his own 
interests and with the necessary opportunity for full examina- 
tion of the charges and preparation of his defense. You are 
presumed to be in consultation with Mr. Sanguily 's advocate, 
and should confer freely with him on this point, endeavoring 
to avoid as well unseemly haste to his disfavor as prolonged 
delays to his injury." 

The trial began as has been said on the 28th of November, 
1895, ^at 12 o'clock m. The Government was represented 
by the Fiscal or Prosecuting Attorney, Sefior Don Federico 
Enjuto, and the prisoner by Don Miguel F. Viondi, a member 
of the bar at Havana. The tribunal consisted of five Judges, 
as follows : Senor Don Jose Pulido, Presiding Judge, Sefior 
Don Francisco Pampillon, Senor Don Vicente Pardo Bonanza, 
Senor Don Adolfo Astudillo de Guzman, and Sefior Don 
Rafael Maydagan, Associate Judges. 

The United States Consul-General was instructed by the 
State Department, November 14th, 1895, to attend the trial as 
spectator, and make concise but sufficient report of the pro- 
ceedings. 

The prosecution made an effort to poison the mind of the 
Court against the prisoner by referring at length and with as 
much force as was at its command, to the political ideas of the 
prisoner and his former affiliations, his services to the cause of 
the independence of Cuba during the war of 1868-1878, and 



32 

his abjuration of his Spanish allegiance and his naturalization 
in the United States, in the latter year. But as far as the spe- 
cific charge upon which the prisoner was on trial, the prosecu- 
tion did not produce more evidence than the same so-called one 
which had been secured by it in violation of the treaty during 
the period of military investigation. 

That evidence was clearly inadmissible, and ought to have 
been stricken out or rejected. Assistant Secretary of State, 
Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, in his dispatch to Mr. Williams, of Decem- 
ber 23d, 1895, expressed, with reason, the apprehension that 
such a method of proceedings against Sanguily ' ' was not in 
accordance with the treaty of 1795, as construed by the proto- 
col of 1877," because as shown by the record the civil court 
had merely taken up the case where the military tribunal had 
left it off, the trial being based and conducted upon the same 
charges formulated, and upon the evidence taken by the Judge 
Advocate. This undue continuation, and attempted revalida- 
tion of proceedings taken in violation of a law of such a high 
character and supremacy as an international compact is, and 
by authorities which under the same compact had no compe- 
tent jurisdiction to take them, was a practical nullification of 
the treaty privileges of the prisoner. 

This inadmissible and improper so-called evidence, upon 
which the prosecution succeeded, however, in securing the 
conviction of Sanguily was substantially as follows: 

I. An affidavit or certified statement of Governor- General 
Calleja, dated March 25, 1895 (see pages 8 and 9), stating 
nothing on the affiant's own personal knowledge, but merely 
on information acquired through confidential communications 
and reports, which were never produced. 

II. A number of papers purporting to be copies of letters 
alleged to have been written by Sanguily at Havana, at various 
times previous to February 23d, 1895, and addressed to Don 
Jose Marti and some other individuals residing in New York 
and other cities of the United States of America. It was ex- 



33 

plained that the originals of the said letters, as well as the 
originals of other letters mailed at Havana to the same addresses, 
had been detained at the Havana Post Office, and opened, and 
read and copied, and thereafter resealed and forwarded to their 
respective destinations, and that copies thus obtained had been 
sent to the Govern or- General, and by him to the Judge Advo- 
cate, to be made a part of the record. 

It is hardly necessary to suggest that such so-called copies, 
alleged to have been obtained through a process so highly 
disreputable and so much to be condemned, especially when 
resorted to before the constitutional guarantees were suspended, 
ought not to have been admitted in evidence. 

As the prisoner denied to have written the letters whose 
alleged copies were shown to him, it seems to be clear that the 
production thereof as proofs only served to show the bad 
behavior of the postal authorities of Cuba in tampering with 
the mails of the Postal Union, and also the clumsy way of 
their tampering. 

III. A letter which together with some other papers of no 
value was found by the police in a drawer of a cupboard, in a 
room which Sanguily had occupied in a house on the estate 
called Portela, in the rural district of Aguacate. Said letter, 
which has no address, but was claimed by the prosecution to 
have been written to Sanguily, contains a passage which trans- 
lated into English reads as follows : ' ' None better than you, 
for your respectable surroundings, the credit which your name 
will impart to the movement, your old and well-established 
reputation as a revolutionist and a soldier, and the position 
which you have always occupied amidst both parties, is called 
to lead a serious and important movement." 

This letter, which the prisoner did not recognize, and which 
no person can say who wrote it or to whom it was addressed, 
might at all events be construed as an invitation from the 
writer to the man to whom it was sent to join the rebellion ; but 
it never can be taken as an acceptance of the invitation or a 



34 

proof of the actual joining, or attempting to join, the move- 
ment to which it refers. 

IV. A paper, or better to say the fragments of a paper, torn 
to pieces and chewed up by a man named Don Jose Inocencio 
Azcuy, in whose possession it was found when he was arrested 
by the police at the moment he landed in Havana, coming 
from Key West, Florida, said fragments having been more or 
less illegibly arranged, and made a part of the record.* 

The prosecution claimed that this paper, which has no date, 
was an original commission of Colonel in the insurgent army 
issued by Sanguily, as chief commander of the same, in favor 
of Azcuy. 

Sanguily denied to have ever seen that paper or written it, 
or to know Mr. Azcuy, or have ever heard of him or of the 
said commission. 

V. The deposition of Senor Trujillo, a Police Inspector, who 
said that he arrested Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy, on his landing 
from a steamer from Key West, that he searched him and untied 
his cravat ; that inside the said cravat he found the paper referred 
to in the foregoing paragraph; that Azcuy by a sudden move- 



(*)The text of this strange document, as arranged by the prosecution, 
and on file, is as follows : 

" Sr. D. J. Azu — Coronel del Ejer — ciudadano — competentemente 
autor — Coronel de nuestro — sub — y — Queda V. actor — z — conferir nom- 
bran — todasque por mi merit — cios los merezca — organizara fuerzas que — 
to le iran a U. — instrucciones — sobre la manera 6 — ganiz — los y puntos 
que ha de ocupar — confiamos en su celo — tico espera — zo affmo, su y P. J. 
S — nguily — " 

A true translation into English of the foregoing text, such as it was 
left, after it passed through the chewing process and the struggle between 
Mr. Azcuy and the policeman, is a matter of great difficulty ; but an idea 
of its meaning may be formed by the following : 

"Sr. D. J. Azu — Colonel of the Arm — citizen— competently author — 
Colonel of our — sub — and — You are author — z — to confer appoint — all 
that my merit — ces deserve them — Shall organize forces which — to they 
will go to you — instructions — on the manner or — ganiz — them and points 
which you have (or he has) to occupy — We trust in your zeal — tico — 
expects — zo — most affectionate, your (or his) P. J. S — nguily." 



35 

ment snatched it from his (Trujillo's) hands and put it in his 
mouth and tried to chew it up; that he (Trujillo) engaged then 
in a struggle with Azcuy in order to rescue the paper, and that 
he succeeded with the greatest difficulty ' ' in securing a part of 
it," and "taking another fragment out of Azcuy 's mouth." 

VI. The testimony of Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy, who 
explained how the paper was found inside his necktie, and how 
he had attempted to destroy it. Witness said that that paper was 
really a commission of Colonel in the insurgent army, issued 
in his favor, at his request, and sent to him by the Revolutionary 
Junta of New York, through his nephew, Don Nemesio Azcuy, 
who brought it to Key West, Fla. The witness further said 
that he had applied for this appointment of Colonel in the 
insurgent army, not because he would have ever thought of 
joining the insurgents, but because of his desire to protect him- 
self and his estate, "Kl Rosario," from insurgent raids. He 
also stated that he did not know whether the signature affixed 
to the Commission was or was not Sanguily's. 

VII. The depositions of three experts in caligraphy, — Senor 
Biosca, Senor Perez Madueno, and Senor Alvarez — who, upon 
examination of the fragments of paper purporting to be the 
commission aforesaid, and upon comparison of its handwriting 
and signature with other papers in the acknowledged genuine 
handwriting of the prisoner, and signed by him, said respec- 
tively as follows : Senor Biosca, that he deemed the hand- 
writing and signature of the so-called commission to be similar 
to Sanguily's genuine handwriting and signature, but that he 
could not positively state that they were Sanguily's, — and 
Senors Perez Madueno and Alvarez, that the paper was 
wholly illegible and that they could not make any sense of it 
or fairly make any comparison between it and the other papers. 

VIII. The deposition of Don Antonio Lopez Coloma, an 
insurgent leader captured by the authorities and afterward con- 
demned to death and executed, who said, among other things, 
that an insurgent leader of high rank called Don Pedro Betan- 



}6 

court had given him instructions to come to Havana and confer 
with Sanguily and some others in regard to planning and start- 
ing a revolutionary movement ; but that deponent had declined 
to have any interview with Sanguily, and never had it, because 
"he had heard that Sanguily disapproved the movement," 
and because deponent "never thought that Sanguily would 
join the insurrection." 

IX. A paper all rumpled up, partially torn, and carefully 
pressed and fixed up afterwards, for preservation, by the Judge 
Advocate, which purports to be a letter, dated February 9th, 
1895, written by one " Gener," to one Don Pedro Betancourt, 
and found not in the possession of Betancourt or of Sanguily, 
but in a pocket of Don Antonio Lopez Coloma, when the Span- 
ish troops captured him, on or about the 1st or the 2nd of 
March, 1895. The prosecution claimed that the signature 
"Gener" affixed to the letter was a bogus signature, and 
that the letter had been written by Sanguily. 

It was never explained how it came to pass that this letter 
written by ' ' Gener ' ' to Betancourt found out its way to 
the pocket of Lopez Coloma, — nor is it shown by the record 
that the prosecution did ever take any step to identify the 
person who had signed the said letter. The name " Gener " 
is not by any means an uncommon name, especially in the 
province of Matanzas, wherein Lopez Coloma was captured; — 
and if the prosecution had not taken at once for granted that 
Gener and Sanguily were one and the same person, some 
light, as necessary in all judicial investigation, might have been 
thrown into the subject. 

The passage in this letter, claimed by the prosecution to 
accriminate Sanguily, expresses the regret of the writer for 
being so short of money as to become prevented from attempt- 
ing anything. The writer explains that this impecunious 
condition had forced him to pawn a machete and a revolver 
which were his property; and then he goes on and urges 
Betancourt to send to him, as soon as possible, the twenty-five 



37 

hundred dollars which had been promised. The communica- 
tion closed with the following remark : ' ' Cervantes saw himself 
without anything to eat at supper when he finished to write 
Don Quijote ; and I, when about to be placed at the head of 
a work of redemption, find myself without means, even to send 
my cook to the market." 

X. The testimony of the Government expert in caligraphy, 
Sefior Biosca, who compared the handwriting of the letter 
referred to in the foregoing paragraph with that of other genu- 
ine letters of the prisoner, and said that ' ' he considered both 
handwritings similar, and thought that all these papers shown 
to him had been written by the same hand, although he could 
not positively state that they were so written." 

Sefior Perez Madueno and Sefior Alvarez, the other experts 
in caligraphy, could not see the similarity which their colleague 
said to have found. 

XI. The testimony of Don Ramon Sanchez, a pawnbroker 
in the city of Havana, who said "that about a year, a year 
and a half, or two years, ' ' Sanguily had pawned in his estab- 
lishment a revolver and a machete, which were never re- 
deemed." 

XII. The deposition of Don Jose Paglieri, Chief of the 
Havana Police, who in answer to the question, " Had you any 
knowledge that he (Sanguily) was conspiring with Betancourt 
and L,opez Coloma at Matanzas ? " said: ' ' I know in a general 
way that an effort was being made in behalf of secession ; every- 
body knew that." And when asked by the Presiding Judge: 
1 ' Did you know that Sanguily was going to place himself at 
the head of a band from Matanzas, Ibarra, or any other place ? " 
he answered : " I did not know anything about it. I only knew 
that there was a conspiracy on foot. ' ' Counsel for defendant 
questioned then this witness about the reports which he as 
Chief of Police had made about Sanguily, and he answered: 
"A record of this must be in the Captain General's Office, since 
the Captain General was informed of the facts ; I have no infor- 
mation except common reports which I am unable to prove." 



38 

Senor Viondi, as counsel for Sanguily, made a strong argu- 
ment against the insinuations and so-called testimony of the 
prosecution. He earnestly endeavored to persuade the Court 
of the futility of all that had been alleged with reference to the 
part which Sanguily had taken in the war of 1 868-1 878. The 
movement represented by that war was different from the one 
now started. The origin, the nature, the tendencies, and the 
developments of the former were not the origin, nature, ten- 
dencies, and developments of the latter. And a man who fully 
approved the former and intimately connected himself with it 
might without inconsistency disapprove the latter, and even 
dislike it heartily and avoid all connection with it. The atten- 
tion of the Court was also called to the fact that the expatriation 
from Spain and the giving up of the Spanish allegiance, were 
lawful acts, which Spanish subjects could lawfully perform, and 
that the naturalization of Sanguily in the United States of 
America could not thus be construed as an act of rebellion, and 
much less as evidence of his alleged connection with the present 
movement. The illegal character of the evidence and its 
undue admission were also discussed at length and proven 
beyond a doubt. 

The affidavit of Governor- General Calleja, which under the 
express provisions of the treaty ought not to have been admitted 
as evidence against Sanguily(*), was confronted with the depo- 
sition of Colonel Paglieri, Chief of the Havana Police, and 
shown to be without force, because of the lack of proof of the 
assertions made in it, merely on confidential reports. 



(*) Article VII of the treaty between the United States and Spain 
allows American citizens in Spain, and Spanish subjects in the United 
States, to appoint agents, advocates, etc., to assist them when on trial for 
any offense committed, or alleged to have been committed by them, and 
says : ' ' and such agents shall have free access to be present at the pro- 
ceedings in such causes, and at the taking of all examinations and evi- 
dence which may be exhibited in the said trials." Counsel for Sanguily 
was not present, nor allowed to be present, at the taking of Governor- 
General Calleja's affidavit. 



39 

The alleged copies of the supposed intercepted letter were 
proof only, if such a shameful tampering with the mails of the 
Postal Union was true, of the wickedness of the Spanish 
postal officials who perpetrated it. 

The unsigned and unaddressed communication alleged to 
have been found at the Portela estate, and construed by the 
prosecution as an appeal to Sanguily to join the present insur- 
rection, could never be considered, even if really sent to San- 
guily, and received by him, as evidence that he yielded to the 
appeal and assented to lead the movement. 

The connection of Sanguily with the Azcuy's mutilated 
paper, denied by Sanguily, denied by Azcuy, and denied by 
the experts in caligraphy, was not properly shown by the 
prosecution. An enemy of Sanguily, or an ultra officious 
Cuban patriot, anxious to improve his cause by the prestige of 
Sanguily's name, might easily have written Sanguily's name, 
if it was really written, at the foot of that paper. If the owner 
of the paper was seeking protection, as he said, against insur- 
gent raids, the idea might have occurred to him that Sanguily's 
signature, whether genuine or spurious, at the foot of the docu- 
ment was perhaps more conducive than any other thing to the 
accomplishment of his purpose. 

The failure of the prosecution to prove that the letter, supposed 
to have been found in I/>pez Coloma's pocket, signed " Gener," 
and addressed to Don Pedro Betancourt, was really Sanguily's, 
was fully demonstrated by an affidavit of Don Pedro Betancourt 
himself, which the prisoner's counsel offered in evidence, but 
was not admitted by the Court. In that affidavit, sworn to 
before a Notary Public, in the city of New York, at a date 
subsequent to the filing by the prosecution of the letter herein 
referred to, and duly authenticated, Don Pedro Betancourt 
denied to have ever received such letter, and explained the 
reasons why he deemed it to be spurious. 

When the prisoner himself was examined he emphatically 
denied to have connected himself in any way whatever with 



40 

the present revolution. He said distinctly that " he was in no 
way concerned in the uprising and had had nothing to do with 
it," that he had refused to entertain any relation at all with 
it, and that "he had kept entirely aloof from the movement." 

This positive and emphatic declaration by the prisoner was 
corroborated by the testimony of Iyopez Coloma and others, as 
well as by the fact, which seems to be obvious, that if Sanguily 
would have been connected with the rebellion in such principal 
and important a manner as the prosecution claimed, he would 
not have remained quietly at his home twenty-four hours after 
the proclamation of martial law in the Island, patiently await- 
ing to be arrested. 

The counsel for the prisoner made the additional point and 
made it ably, that even if Sanguily had done what the prose- 
cution claimed, his offense was not " rebellion," but "con- 
spiracy for rebellion," which is a different offense under 
Article 244 of the Penal Code. This offense is punishable with 
"correctional imprisonment," not less than six months and 
one day, and not more than six years, and not with imprison- 
ment for life at hard labor as desired by the prosecution. 

An effort was made also by the same distinguished lawyer 
to secure for his client the application of the amnesty granted 
by Governor-General Calleja, three days after the imprisonment 
of Sanguily, and extended even to those insurgents in arms, 
who would be willing to surrender. 

VI. 

THE SENTENCE. 

The sentence passed by the Court, as read in public by the 
Presiding Judge, Don Jose Pulido, at twenty minutes past four, 
p. M., of Monday, December 2nd, 1895, was as follows: 

"In the City of Havana, on the 2nd of December, 1895, * n 
the case pending before Section 3d of the Criminal Court, be- 
tween the Government, and Don Julio Sanguily y Garit, a 
native and a resident of this capital, but a citizen of the United 



41 

States of America, 44 years old, married, the son of Don Julio 
Sanguily, and Dona Maria Garit de Sanguily, a business man 
by occupation, a man of education, with no criminal record, 
for the crime of rebellion, — the Government being represented 
by the Prosecuting Attorney and the defendant Sanguily by 
Solicitor Don Juan Plutarco Valdes and the lawyer Don Miguel 
Francisco Viondi : 

"1. Whereas in the proceedings instituted by order of the 
military authorities and by military justice against Don Eladio 
Larrinaga, Don Julio Sanguily, Don Jose Maria Aguirre and 
others, charged with the crime of 'rebellion,' it was ordered 
that a certified copy of the record in so far as concerning the 
aforesaid Sanguily and Aguirre should be made and turned 
over to the civil authorities, because under the protocol of 
January 12th, 1877, the said civil authorities are the only ones 
having competent jurisdiction to try the case of the said two 
prisoners, for the reason that they are citizens of the United 
States of America : it appearing that the said order was com- 
plied with, and that the copy so ordered to be made and turned 
over to the civil authorities was first transmitted to the Senior 
Judge of this city, and by him subsequently and for the pur- 
poses of examination and prosecution to the Judge of Instruc- 
tion for HI Cerro district, who proceeded to prepare the case for 
proper trial (*) : 

2. Whereas it is proved that Don Julio Sanguily y Garit, 
whose affiliations with the separatist party, in which he enjoyed 
influence and prestige, owing to the services which he had ren- 
dered to the rebel cause in the insurrection which ended in 
1878, kept himself in relations with persons residing in this 
Island and abroad for the purpose of organizing an uprising to 
secure independence ; — and that he was one of the abettors and 
leaders of the present uprising (f) : 

" 3. Whereas, it is proved that Don Antonio Lopez Coloma, 
a resident of the district of Matanzas came to this capital on the 
21st of February, 1895, f° r th e purpose of receiving orders and 
instructions from Don Julio Sanguily, as to whether the cry of 



(*) The language of this part of the decision shows how just the remarks 
of Assistant Secretary of State Mr. Uhl were when he said that Sanguily's 
case had been merely taken up by the Civil authorities where the Military 
authorities had left it off; and that what was done under military juris- 
diction, although null and void, had been accepted and validated. 

(t) This statement, merely a petitio principii, takes for granted and 
gives as proved precisely the same fact which was to be investigated. 
No legal proof was ever produced of the correspondence alluded to by 
the Court in this part of the sentence. 



42 

' ' Long live the independence ' ' should or should not be raised : — 
that both of them agreed as to starting the revolutionary 
movement on the 24th of the same month ; — that the said 
revolutionary movement broke out at the date agreed upon, 
several bands of men rising up in arms in open hostility 
towards the Government, and proclaiming the independence 
of this Island; — that the said Lopez Coloma, who had joined 
one of these bands and was captured by the troops of the 
Government, carried about his person, when taken prisoner, 
besides his arms and various papers, one letter written by 
Don Julio Sanguily, dated February 9th, and addressed to 
one Mr. Betancourt, who was likewise concerned in the upris- 
ing, in which letter Sanguily lamented his lack of means, and 
said that he was so poor as to be unable to take the field and 
redeem a machete and a revolver which he had had to pawn, 
urging Betancourt to get for him as soon as possible the twenty- 
five hundred dollars which he had promised him, and adding 
that he had no head to think about anything of interest, as he 
saw himself, just at the moment of placing himself at the head 
of a work of redemption, without means even of sending his 
cook to the market (*): — 

"4. Whereas it is proved that at the time in which the letter 
above referred to was written, Sanguily had in a pawnbroker's 
office called ' ' La Equitativa ' ' a machete and a revolver which 
he had pawned, and were sold after his arrest, f 

"5. Whereas it is proved that Don Julio Sanguily was 
arrested at the house in which he lived at Havana at an early 
hour in the morning of February 24th, 1895, the same day on 
which the uprising took place. 

" 6. Whereas, it is proved that when Don Jose Inocencio 
Azcuy arrived in this port from Tampa he was arrested by an 
inspector of police, who took from him a document which he 
had hidden in his cravat, and that when the aforesaid Azcuy 
saw that he was discovered he snatched a part of said document 
out of the hands of the inspector and put it in his mouth for 
the purpose of destroying it, and that the inspector compelled 
him by force to spit out the pieces, and that the said document 



(*)This clause of the sentence takes it for granted that Don Antonio 
Lopez Coloma saw Sanguily, which both Lopez Coloma and Sanguily 
denied. Nor does it pay attention to the fact that the signature of the 
letter reads "Gener" and not "Sanguily." 

(t) Neither the name of the pawnbroker's office was " La Equitativa," 
nor were the revolver and machete pawned or sold when the sentence 
says they were. The testimony of the pawnbroker himself, Don Ram6n 
Sanchez, demolishes the structure built by the Court upon movable sand. 



43 

was written and signed by Don Julio Sanguily, and was a 
commission of colonel in the insurgent army, with power to 
organize troops and make appointments ; 

" 7. Whereas, when the order to end the preliminary ex- 
amination was confirmed, the first hearing took place, and 
in accordance with the request therein made by the Govern- 
ment attorney, an order was issued to suspend the proceedings 
provisionally against Don Jose Maria Aguirre, one-half of the 
costs to be paid by him, and to commence the public trial of 
Don Julio Sanguily ; 

"8. Whereas, the record was delivered to the Government 
attorney, who made an argument characterizing the offense as 
rebellion, as described by Article 237, No. 1, and punished in 
Article 238 of the Penal Code, and asked that Don Julio Sanguily 
y Garit should be sentenced as guilty of the aforesaid crime to 
imprisonment for life, with the accessory penalties of Article 33 
of the Code, and to the payment of one-half of the costs; 

" 9. Whereas, the counsel for the defense, in his turn, asked 
for the acquittal of the prisoner on the ground that there was 
no legal reason to suppose that his client had committed the 
acts attributed to him, and proposed as an alternative that his 
client should be pardoned on the ground that he was included 
in the proclamation published on the 27th day of February ; 

1 ' 10. Whereas the proofs offered by the Government attorney 
and the prisoner's counsel having been accepted, a day was 
appointed for holding the public trial, on which occasion they 
reiterated their previous arguments ; 

"11. Whereas, according to Article 8 of the Civil Code and 
Article 41 of the L,aw concerning foreigners, the penal laws are 
binding upon all persons living in Spanish territory, and that 
consequently, the provisions of the Penal Code are applicable 
to Don Julio Sanguily y Garit, since his American citizenship 
gives him only the rights granted by the protocol of January 
12, 1877, which rights have been recognized ; 

"12. Whereas, according to Article 237, No. 1, of the Penal 
Code, persons who publicly rise in arms in open hostility to the 
Government in order to proclaim the independence of Cuba and 
Puerto Rico, or of either of them, are guilty of the crime of 
rebellion ; 

" 13. Whereas the acts declared to have been proved in the 
third " whereas " constitute the consummated crime defined in 
the twelfth "whereas," since the object and purpose of the 
rising, which took place on the 24th of February, is to secure 
the independence of this Island ; 

" 14. Whereas, according to Article 238 of the same code, 



44 

persons who induce others to become rebels by promoting or 
sustaining the rebellion, and the principal leaders thereof are 
to be punished by imprisonment for life ; 

"15. Whereas the facts declared to have been proved in the 
second, third, fourth and fifth " whereases, " conclusively show 
that Don Julio Sanguily y Garit was guilty, through direct 
participation of the crime defined in the thirteenth ' ' whereas, ' ' 
and has rendered himself liable to the penalty provided for in 
the fourteenth, because not only was he one of the promoters 
of the rebellion but was also one of its leaders or principal 
chiefs, as has been shown to the satisfaction of the court, not 
only by the data in possession of the court and by the evidence 
taken at the public trial, but also by an examination and com- 
parison of the documents connected with the third and sixth 
"whereases," in the undoubted handwriting of the prisoner 
(which examination the Court performed in fulfillment of the 
duty made obligatory upon it by Article 726 of the law on 
criminal trials), and, moreover, by the context of the letter ad- 
dressed to Betancourt fifteen days before the uprising took place, 
and by the context of the document taken from Azcuy, inas- 
much as appointments of that importance can be made only by 
the directors or principal leaders of the rebellion ; 

"16. Whereas, the fact that Don Julio Sanguily was arrested 
on the morning of the very day on which the uprising took 
place does not authorize the court to consider him as guilty 
merely of a frustrated crime or of only an attempt to commit 
rebellion, because from the letter and spirit of Article 338 it is 
to be inferred that promoters of the rebellion are liable to suffer 
the whole penalty even if they are not at the head of any rebel 
bands or actually sustaining the rebellion, it being sufficient 
that they have promoted it, and because, it has been satisfac- 
torily shown that Don Julio Sanguily was one of the principal 
leaders of the rebellion. 

"17. Whereas, leaving out of consideration the fact that the 
alternative request of the prisoner's counsel should have been 
made as an article of ' previo pronunciamiento,' in which case 
alone it could have been insisted upon at the public trial, ac- 
cording to Articles 666 and 678 of the law governing criminal 
trials, it is certain that the granting of the requested pardon 
does not come within the competency of this court, and that 
on the hypothesis that the prisoner (although he was arrested 
three days before the publication of the Captain-General's proc- 
lamation) was entitled to it, the granting of that pardon is wholly 
foreign to the jurisdiction of this court, which in the mean- 
time has only to consider the crime punished by the Code, and 



45 

that there are no subsequent legal circumstances that prevent 
its punishment, as was declared by the Supreme Court in its 
decision of July 16, 1873. 

"18. Whereas neither the Government attorney nor the 
counsel for the defense have pointed out any extenuating cir- 
cumstances, nor can any be inferred from the facts declared to 
have been proved, and therefore it is proper to impose the 
mildest penalty provided for the crime, viz., imprisonment for 
life; 

"19. Whereas there is no reason to enforce civil responsi- 
bility, and as the costs are understood to be at the charge of 
those who are guilty of any crime : 

1 ' Now, therefore, in view of the articles of the penal code 
which have already been quoted, and also of articles 1, n, 12, 
26, 53, 62, 79, 89, and 741 of the law governing criminal trials, 
we pronounce sentence to the effect that it is our duty to con- 
demn, and we do hereby condemn, Don Julio Sanguily to 
imprisonment for life at hard labor, and to deprivation of his 
civil rights and subjection to the vigilance of the authorities 
during his lifetime ; and in case the principal penalty be remitted, 
we condemn him to absolute deprivation of his civil rights and 
to subjection to the vigilance of the authorities during his 
lifetime, unless these penalties shall be remitted in the pardon; 
and we further condemn him to the payment of one-half of the 
costs of the preliminary examination, and of all those which 
have been incurred in this case since the public trial was begun ; 
and in view of the investigation made about Sanguily' s prop- 
erty, we declare Don Julio Sanguily to be insolvent for the 
purposes of this case. Thus by this, our sentence, we do 
pronounce, order, and sign. 

"Jose; Pulido, 
"Francisco Pampillon, 
"Vicente Pardo Bonanza, 
"Adolpo AstudilIvO de Guzman, 
"Rafael Maydagan." 



46 

VII. 

THE APPEAL TO THE SUPREME COURT OF SPAIN. 

The record shows that the distinguished lawyer who had 
had in his charge the defense of Julio Sanguily, during the 
trial ended by the sentence whose full text has been given in 
the foregoing chapter, acting with great prudence and looking 
above all, as it was his duty, to the good of his client, decided, 
as soon as the Said sentence was made known to him, to 
abandon, at least practically and temporarily, all troublesome 
contentions about the treaty rights of the prisoner and the 
validity of the proceedings according to which the case had 
been conducted, and to use such remedies as the system of 
procedure, whether legal or illegal, which had been followed 
permitted against the sentence. Under the L,aw for the appli- 
cation in the Island of Cuba of the Penal Code of Spain, en- 
acted, as stated before, on May 23d, 1879, the case could be 
taken by means of a writ of error to the Supreme Court of 
Spain, and Sanguily 's learned counsel, seeing that through 
this remedy a new chance for his client to obtain justice was 
open, and further opportunities were also furnished the United 
States Government to get such an accurate and complete infor- 
mation about the facts as was necessary for it to avoid mistakes 
and shape its action finally — determined right away to make 
use of the remedy which was within his reach, and have the 
case submitted to the highest civil jurisdiction in the Spanish 
realm. 

This determination of Sanguily's lawyer was made known, 
among other things, to the State Department by the despatch 
of Consul-General Williams to Assistant Secretary of State Mr. 
Uhl, of December 7th, 1895. (Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th 
Congress, 2d session, page 42). 

Had the learned counsel insisted on the idea, no matter how 
well founded, and already presented to the consideration of the 
Spanish Government ever since April 25th, 1895, and of the 



47 

Court itself (November 12th, 1895). by the solemn protest of 
Consul-General Williams, in the name of his government 
(Doc. No. 104, ibid, pages 12 and 71), that Julio Sanguily 
ought to have been tried by such a civil court and according to 
such proceedings as are provided by the Spanish Law of April 
17th, 1 82 1, spoken of in the Gushing Calderon y Collantes Pro- 
tocol of 1877, — and not by the civil court and according to such 
proceedings as were competent and legal under the Spanish 
Law of May 23d, 1879, and other laws subsequent to the said 
Protocol, — he would have had to acknowledge, under the said 
law of 1 82 1, that the sentence was final, and would have left 
his client with no other hope of relief than the interposition in 
his favor by the Government of the United States of America, 
whether in the form of a demand, peremptorily made and en- 
forced by ships of war, according to the methods which the 
Honorable William P. Frye, Senator from Maine, would have 
resorted to, as he said, if he had had his way, or in some other 
form, more moderate, and not so much at variance with the 
habits of diplomacy and civilization. 

The risk was run in either case, that before the men-of-war 
sent to Havana to rescue Sanguily could have reached that port, 
and succeeded in intimidating the Spanish authorities of the 
Island of Cuba to the extreme of causing them to surrender the 
prisoner, — or before any proper diplomatic representations could 
have reached the Madrid Foreign Office, — Julio Sanguily might 
probably have found himself crossing the Atlantic Ocean, on 
board a Spanish vessel, poorly treated, and heavily ironed, on 
his way to Ceuta, if not already there living the life of a 
convict. 

The wise determination of Sanguily's learned counsel did 
not prevent the Government of the United States from carrying 
out its purpose to ascertain, upon real practical knowledge 
of the facts, whether the treatv rights of Sanguily had or had 
not been violated. Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Uhl, 
wrote to Consul-General Williams, on December 23rd, 1895, as 



4 8 

follows "From your dispatch No. 2677 of the 7th instant, 
and from a letter filed under date of the 13th instant, from Mr. 
Julio Sanguily, the Department has learned the result of the 
trial of Mr. Sanguily in the criminal court of Cuba. From 
these reports of the trial there is reason to apprehend that the 
proceedings which terminated in Mr. Sanguily's conviction 
were not in accordance with the treaty of 1795 as construed 
by the protocol of 1877. It is inferred from the reports that 
the civil court took up the case against Sanguily where the 
military tribunal left off, and that the trial proceeded upon the 
charges formulated and the evidence taken by the military 
court. It is necessary before taking any action, that the 
Department should be accurately and fully advised as to the 
manner in which the trial has been conducted with reference 
to the Code of criminal procedure and to the provisions of the 
treaty and protocol. The position of this Government is 
outlined in a telegram to your office, dated May 21, last (*), 
to which you are referred. You are instructed to make this 
report with as little delay as possible, setting forth each step 
in the proceedings from the first arrest by the military author- 
ities to the conviction in the civil court." (Doc. No. 104, 
Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd session, page 70.) 

Previously to this dispatch, Mr. Uhl had urged the United 



(*) Mr. Uhl to Mr. Springer. Telegram. Department of State, 
Washington, May 21, 1895. — Carrillo's case, involving most important 
principle, has been presented by United States Minister to Spain. In 
cases Aguirre and Sanguily you will file formal protest declining to 
recognize validity of military jurisdiction in preliminary stage. The 
treaty of 1795 excludes the exercise of military jurisdiction altogether, and 
requires arrests to be made and offences proceeded against by ordinary 
jurisdiction only. Protocol merely recognizes, declares and explains this 
treaty right. Military arm has no judicial cognizance over our citizens at 
any stage. Even arrests, when made by military power, are by a conven- 
tional figment deemed to have been a civil act. By no fiction can pro- 
ceedings of military Judge instructor be deemed to be the act of an ordi- 
nary court of first instance. — Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd 
session, page 17. 



49 

States Consul- General to get a copy of the record of the trial 
and forward it to the State Department. 

But this important instruction could not be complied with, 
either by Mr. Williams or by General I^ee, in spite of their zeal 
and diligence, because of certain technical difficulties which 
presented themselves and which neither of those officials could 
overcome, and more than all, because the counsel for the 
prisoner, acting with proper haste, had already taken the case, 
by means of a writ of error, to the Supreme Court of Spain, 
and as usual in such cases, under the law, the original record 
had been forwarded to Madrid. 

About eleven months after that date, namely, on the 29th of 
September, 1896, the said Supreme Court reversed the sentence 
and practically ordered a new trial. The court below was 
directed to admit in evidence the Betancourt's affidavit which 
had been rejected in the former trial and to give to it such 
weight as might be legal and proper. 

The following is the text translated into English of the 
decision of the Supreme Court of Spain : 

" In the City and Court of Madrid, on the 29th of September, 
1896, in the case taken before us on a writ of error by Julio 
Sanguily y Garit, appealing from the sentence of the Audiencia 
of Havana in the proceedings instituted in the first instance 
against the said Sanguily in the Court of El Cerro District, at 
Havana, for the crime of rebellion: 

" It appearing that the Audiencia of Havana when taking 
cognizance of this case in the second instance, and subsequent 
to that stage of the proceedings in which the facts are recapitu- 
lated, decided to admit all the evidence offered by both the 
prosecution and the defense in their respective petitions, and 
set apart the 28th of November ultimo for the trial : 

' ' It appearing that on the 14th of the same month of Novem- 
ber the counsel for the defendant filed an affidavit said to have 
been just received by mail from the United States, sworn to by 
Don Pedro E. Betancourt before a Notary Public, stating that 
deponent had been informed that a letter, supposed to have 
been addressed to him and signed by one Gener, had been put 
in evidence against the prisoner, and that the said letter had 
never been received by deponent, nor has it been seen by him, 



50 

nor was he in any manner acquainted with its contents; and 
that in filing the said affidavit the counsel for the defense 
invoked Article 4th of the Protocol of January 12th, 1877, relat- 
ing to the construction to be placed upon certain provisions of 
existing treaties between the United States and Spain, and 
claimed that citizens of the United States are entitled to produce 
in their defense, at any time, whatever proofs they may deem 
favorable, for all of which he asked the said affidavit to be 
admitted as evidence, and ordered to be given the proper 
weight as such : 

' ' It appearing that the Audiencia founded on the facts, — that 
under Article 656 of the Law of Criminal Procedure, the 
whole testimony to be used by each party is to be described in 
the petitions called de calificacion, — that according to Article 
728 of the Code, those proofs so suggested or announced at the 
proper time, and no others, are to be admitted, except in the 
extraordinary cases marked in Articles 729 and 730 of the Code 
relating to steps to be taken by order of the Court, or as a 
result of the debates at the time of the trial, — that the said pro- 
visions, which had to be strictly obeyed and complied with in 
this case, prevented the documentary evidence offered by San- 
guily's counsel after the judicially specified time from being 
admitted at that stage of the proceedings, — and that even in case 
the stipulation of the Protocol of 1877 should be given atten- 
tion, the petition of Sanguily's counsel could not be granted, 
because the protocol, while acknowledging the right of citizens 
of the United States to present all the proofs favorable to them, 
does not authorize them in any manner to produce such proofs 
at a time, or in a form or manner different from the time, form, 
and manner provided for by the Spanish Law of Criminal 
Procedure, — ruled the said affidavit not to be admitted as evi- 
dence and to be returned to the defendant's counsel and that 
defendant's counsel noted an exception against this ruling: 

"It appearing that on the first day of the trial in the Audiencia, 
the defense objected to the examination by a certain expert in 
caligraphy designated by the prosecution, of certain letters 
and documents, on the ground that the said examination had 
been irregularly made in the Court below, without the presence 
of the defendant or of his counsel; that the expert who was now 
called again to examine those papers, and was the same who 
had examined them before, was not at liberty to tell the truth 
and thereby change his testimony, because his first deposition 
had been made upon oath before the Court below ; and that 
the first examination, being null and void, could not be vali- 
dated by such process at that time and at that stage of the 



5* 

case ; and that the Court founded on the ground that the peti- 
tion of the prosecution had been filed in due time, and had 
been granted, and also that the examination of the expert was 
pertinent, ruled out the objection of the defense, for all of 
which the defense noted a further exception : 

' ' It appearing that when the decision of the Audiencia was 
rendered, the defense applied for a writ of error on the ground 
that Articles 911 and 914 of the L,aw of Criminal Procedure 
had been violated, first, because of the non-admission of the 
evidence offered by the defense, which showed the innocence 
of the prisoner, and which according to the treaty between the 
United States and Spain, could be introduced at any time; and 
second, because the examination of the letters and papers, 
made a second time by an expert whose first examination was 
illegal, could not be given any value, because of the impossi- 
bility for the said expert to contradict or amend his first testi- 
mony made upon oath : 

" It appearing that the writ of error was granted, and that 
the case was brought before this Court in the proper order : 

" It appearing that on the day of the trial before this Supreme 
Court, the prosecution, represented b}' the Attorney-General, 
joined the defense in requesting that the decision of the Court 
below should be reversed, though only on the first ground 
alleged by the defense : 

"The case having been duly heard and examined, Associate 
Justice Senor Don Jose Maria Barnuevo being entrusted to 
draw up the decision : 

" Considering that under Section 1, Article 91 1 of the Law of 
Criminal Procedure, cases can be taken to this Supreme Court 
on a writ of error, whenever the admission of some evidence 
offered in due time and in the proper form by any of the parties, 
and deemed to be pertinent, has been refused ; that all these 
circumstances concur in the present case, because the docu- 
ment, which the Audiencia refused to admit as evidence, is 
pertinent, and has intimate relation with another document 
filed by the prosecution, the force of which it tends to destroy, 
and because it was offered in due form and at such a time as it 
was possible for the defense, which can not be deprived, without 
good and sufficient reason, of the benefit to be derived by it ; 
and that for this reason, and not because of the existence of 
any legal provision authorizing the parties to produce evidence 
at any time, the document in question ought to have been ad- 
mitted as evidence, without prejudging thereby its value and 
efficacy : 

"Considering that the second ground on which the defense 



52 

has based his action before this Court is untenable, because 
under the L,aw, while a remedy is given against orders refusing 
to admit pertinent proofs, none is given, however, against 
orders granting their admission. 

" We do hereby decide, that the remedy sought for by the 
defense of Don Julio Sanguily is to be granted on the first 
ground alleged by the said defense, but not on the second ; and 
that therefore we must and do hereby annul and reverse the 
sentence rendered by the Audiencia of Havana in the present 
case, without costs. And let this decision be communicated to 
the said Audiencia, in order that the case be restored to the 
condition in which it was when the admission of the document 
was refused, and properly continued until its termination, 
according to law. So, by this, our final decision, which will 
be published in the Gaceta de Madrid and in the Coleccidn 
Legislativa, it has been ordered, adjudged and decreed by us, 
the undersigned. 

* ' • Santos de Isasa. 

1 ' Mateo de Aecocar. 

" Rafael de Solis Li^bana. 

' ' Victoriano Hernandez. 

' * Salvador Viada. 

"Jose Maria Barnuevo. 

"Juan de D. Roldan." 



53 

VIII. 

THE EFFORTS TO SECURE THROUGH EXECUTIVE SPANISH 
CLEMENCY THE RELEASE OF SANGUILY. 

The writer of these pages did not receive any authority to 
represent Julio Sanguily before the State Department or else- 
where until the nth of November, 1895, when the day for the 
trial of the prisoner at the city of Havana had already been 
fixed. Consul-General Williams had reported on the 2nd of 
the same month that the court had decided to begin the said 
trial on the 28th following ; and therefore it was useless to 
undertake anything until hearing from Havana how the case 
had ended. 

The short time which elapsed between the nth of November 
above mentioned and the day on which the decision of the 
Court of Havana was known at Washington, gave, however, 
to the writer of these pages all proper opportunity to see the 
papers filed, and to become, through correspondence with his 
client and otherwise, fully acquainted with the facts. He 
must confess with sincerity, that the result of his study, as 
well as his knowledge of the circumstances which had sur- 
rounded the case ever since its inception, led him to the con- 
viction that the Spanish authorities of Cuba would never 
voluntarily release his client, as long as the Cuban war should 
give the slightest sign of existence. And as at the same time 
he never thought, that in spite of this undoubted Spanish de- 
termination to keep Sanguily within the walls of Fortress La 
Cabana, more for fear of what he might do, if released, than 
for any thing else, there was any reasonable possibility of 
turning Sauguily's case into a casus belli, or of making it the 
subject of belligerent demonstrations or displays of force, 
because, as declared by Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Uhl, 
in his note to Consul-General Williams of November 9th, 1895, 
there was not, after all, up to that time, any tangible evidence 
that the charge of sedition against Sanguily was frivolous 



54 

and merely vexatious (Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th Congress, 
2nd session, page 39) ; — the idea occurred to him, very 
naturally, that the interests of his client would be better 
subserved by securing, if possible, through diplomatic action, 
the absolute removal of the case from Cuban influences, either 
by having it transferred to Madrid together with the prisoner 
released on bail, or by causing it to be finally terminated through 
the exercise by Spain of executive clemency, whether in the 
form of a full pardon, or of such a commutation of the sentence 
as might involve the freedom of the prisoner. 

It was clear to his mind that as long as the circumstances of 
the war in Cuba should continue to exist, the courts of that 
Island would never do more in favor of his client, than leaving 
some door open to further appeals to the Supreme Court of 
Spain, where the wrongs would be righted, only to the effect 
of commencing the case de novo and having it retried, — and 
that therefore, to the great detriment of Sanguily's interests, 
the probabilities were that the case would be protracted indefi- 
nitely, going forwards and backwards between Havana and 
Madrid, until the termination, if ever, of the Cuban war. 

Founded upon these reasons, and others equally satisfactory 
to him, the writer of these pages decided upon a plan of 
defense, to which his client fully agreed, which substantially 
embraced the following elements : — 

1 st. To secure for Sanguily as full and efficient legal defense 
at Madrid before the Supreme Court as could possibly be 
obtained ; to see there that every point of law, both international 
and municipal would be properly attended to ; and to make an 
effort, taking advantage of a well known precedent, to obtain 
from the said high tribunal a mandate for the release of the 
prisoner on bail, so as to enable him to personally present him- 
self at Madrid, and appear before the court, if his counsel 
should deem it necessary, or advisable. 

2nd and principally : To secure, if possible, through diplo- 
matic effort the release of Sanguily by Royal command, whether 



55 

by applying to him the benefits of the decrees of amnesty of 
Governor- General Calleja, dated respectively February 27th and 
March 4th, 1895, or by the direct exercise in his favor of the 
Royal pardoning power. 

In harboring the conviction which led him to the adoption 
of this plan, the writer of these pages did not mean to be 
unjust towards the court which tried Sanguily, to the extreme 
of imputing to it any deliberate purpose of doing harm to the 
prisoner. He merely was afraid that the Court should be sub- 
servient. He knew very well what the situation of things in 
Cuba turns to be when circumstances of the character of those 
which surrounded the Sanguily case present themselves,— and 
founded upon experience, he entertained serious doubts about 
the possibility that anything which might mean in any way 
whatever judicial independence should exist at that time. He 
remembered the days of 1869, when a man, but only one, — 
namely, Chief Justice Don Joaquin Calbeton, — dared to raise 
his voice, (circular of January 27th, 1S69,) urging the courts 
of Cuba to consider that the first duty of any one entrusted 
with the administration of justice is to have ' ' civic courage ' ' 
and resist outside pressure from whatever source it might come, 
— and he could not see now, when the circumstances were just as 
bad as in 1869, if not worse, another Serlor Calbeton making 
his bold appearance in the Cuban horizon. 

Much less was he guilty, when seeking above all the release 
of Sanguily through Spanish executive clemency, of sharing 
in any way whatever the slanderous imputations which so- 
called friends of Cuba and others have industriously heaped 
upon the administration of President Cleveland and his Secre- 
tary of State Mr. Richard Olney. He knew by his own 
personal experience, covering more than a quarter of a century 
of daily contact with the State Department, not to say anything 
of historical teachings, that in the matter of protection to 
American citizens against injustice and oppression on the part 
of Spain, and in the fulfillment of this duty, manly as well as 



56 

efficiently, the administration of Mr. Cleveland, with Secretary 
of State Mr. Gresham, and Secretary of State Mr. Olney, 
has a record, which its enemies cannot obscure, and which 
challenges comparison with that of all the other administrations 
which preceded it. 

Poor student of history is the one who does not know what 
that protection was from 1869 to 1884, and how powerful Spain 
was in this country during those fifteen years. American 
citizens were murdered in Cuba, sometimes for no other crime 
than wearing a blue necktie : — one of them was executed, even 
in violation of a Spanish safe conduct given him by the Spanish 
Minister; — and in spite of all, even in the case of the Virginius, 
which was settled at the niggard rate of $2,500 per life of an 
American, Spain was always able to get out of her difficulties, 
as a prominent Spaniard established in New York telegraphed 
to Havana, in 1873, m ^ e most graceful manner. 

The mere fact that an executive commission was allowed to 
be established, without the approval of the Senate, and without 
more formalities than an exchange of notes, to adjust all kinds 
of claims of American citizens arising out of injuries to the 
persons or property of American citizens in Cuba during the 
revolution which broke out in that Island in 1868, and that it 
was permitted further to remain in existence in Washington 
for over twelve years, from 1871 to 1883, and to close its ses- 
sions leaving more than one-half of the 140 cases which had 
been referred to it unsettled and undecided for alleged want of 
jurisdiction, or for other reasons still more futile, not to say 
anything of the astounding errors which said commissioners 
were allowed to make in point of law, to such extreme as to 
have deserved afterwards official condemnation, might be suffi- 
cient by itself to demonstrate what the situation was during that 
period. (*) 



(*) Out of eight cases of American citizens killed in Cuba, from 
January, 1869, to February, 1870, namely: Samuel Alexander Conner, 
shot in Havana, January 21st, 1869; Juan Francisco Portuondo, shot near 



57 

An Executive Document of the Senate of the United States, 
No. 108, 41st Congress, 2nd session, shows that on July 9th, 
1870, the Spanish authorities of Cuba had already seized five 
American vessels, killed eight American citizens, unduly im- 
prisoned thirty-six more, and seized and confiscated the prop- 
erty of no less than twenty. All of that went headlong into 
the deadly waters of the famous arbitration of 1871-1883, 
where with some disreputable exceptions, the whole thing was 
wrecked (*). And it shows also, and this is more to the point 
at issue, that even in the opinion of high officials of the United 
States Government, officially expressed, the status of American 
citizens in the eyes of Spain at those eventful days was more 
than miserable. Admiral Hoff, U. S. N., who had been sent 
to Cuban waters on an errand of investigation, could not 
refrain from suggesting, upon absolutely correct comparison, 
that Great Britain's laws of citizenship ought to have some 
peculiarity as to efficiently protecting British subjects, — 
peculiarities well known by the Spanish authorities of Cuba, 
because, in sad contrast with what usually happened to Ameri- 
cans, British subjects were always shown greater consideration 



Santiago de Cuba, in February, 1869; George Bodel, shot on May 24th, 
1869; Charles C. Polhamus, shot on June 13th, 1869 ; Charles Speakman, 
shot on June 16th, 1869; Albert Wythe, shot on June 21st, 1869 ; Ernest 
McCarty, shot on July 17th, 1869 ; and Vincent Dawney, shot on Febru- 
ary 2nd, 1870; only one, namely, the case of Juan Francisco Portuondo, 
was decided favorably. All the others were dismissed or abandoned. 
The Portuondo family was awarded $60,000; but the award was not made 
until after seven years of unrelenting struggle. 

(*) The vessels seized were : — The Mary Lowell, captured at Ragged 
Island, on March 15th, 1869; — The Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall, captured 
on the high seas, on January 21st, 1870 ; — The sloop Champion, seized at 
Santiago de Cuba, where she entered in distress, on February 20th, 
1869 ; — The schooner Lizzie Major, seized on the high seas, on April, 
1869 ; — The sloop Fulton, seized and mobbed at Havana. The case of 
the Lloyd Aspinwall was submitted individually to two arbitrators in 
New York, and decided in favor of the United States. All others were 
either lost or abandoned. 



58 

when captured or wrecked upon the Cuban coast. (Ex. Doc. 
No. 108, Senate, 41st Congress, 2nd session, page 165.) 

But leaving all comparisons aside, and returning to the 
plan of action which the writer of these pages adopted, and to 
the reasons which induced him to adopt it, the confession must 
be made further, that at the time of its adoption no indication 
of any idea to assist Sanguily could at all be perceived either 
in the horizon of Congress (*) or in the legion of impromptu 
self constituted defenders, who swarmed around Sanguily as 
soon as they discovered that his case could be used to harrass 
the administration of Mr. Cleveland, or to provoke, through 
Congressional agitation, a conflict with Spain. 

The writer of these pages saw from the beginning that his 
client was safe in the hands of the Honorable Secretary of 
State, Mr. Olney : that the latter and his subordinates in the 
State Department had done, and done earnestly and successfully, 
in favor of Sanguily, in spite of the serious difficulties which 
the perplexing Cuban problem in its general features brought 
continually into existence, all that could possibly be done under 
the law and diplomatic usages. He saw also that the life, as 
well as the comfort of the prisoner, if comfort can ever be found 
inside a casemate of Fortress La Cabana, or of any other fortress, 
had been strongly guaranteed. He saw that the grave question, 
whetherthe legal proceedings to which Sanguily was subjected 
during his trial were or were not regular and in keeping with 
the treaty stipulations between the United States and Spain, 
had been handled skillfully and given occasion to strong diplo- 
matic representations, which would be continued and insisted 
upon, whatever the result of the case might be j udicially, and 
that these representations, as long as the war in Cuba would 



(*) The resolution introduced in the Senate of the United States, by 
Mr. Call, of Florida, calling for all papers and correspondence in the 
Sanguily case, — which was the first Congressional movement ever made 
on the subject, — was introduced on the 5th of December, 1895, three days 
after the decision of the Court at Havana. 



59 

exist, would never in the end be disregarded by Spain. And 
he saw, in fine, that after all, in determining to pursue such a 
course of action as has been indicated, he only followed the 
example which Sanguily's learned lawyer in Havana had 
given, when he asked the Court to apply to the prisoner the 
benefits of General Calleja's proclamation of amnesty, a 
petition which was not granted, chiefly upon the ground of 
want of jurisdiction, because the matter was, in the opinion 
of the court, not judicial, but political and executive. 

The first letter which the writer of these pages had the honor 
to address to the Honorable Mr. Richard Olney, Secretary of 
State, in behalf of Sanguily, was written in the spirit above 
explained. It substantially conveyed a request for a diplomatic 
effort towards securing the release of the prisoner, either 
temporarily on bail (founded on the Spanish precedent of the 
case of Don Juan Francisco Ramos), during the pendency of 
the appeal, or finally through some act of clemency, as well as 
of comity towards the United States, on the part of Spain. 
When the prisoner was informed of this movement, he was 
pleased beyond measure. In his letter of July 3rd, 1896, he 
said to the writer of these pages: "Hope, which I had 
lost, has revived in my soul through your action. Do all 
that you can, my dear friend, to secure my freedom through a 
pardon (indulto}, or if not possible in that way, try at least to 
obtain my release on bail. — But I pray you, to prevent, if 
possible, my being sent to Madrid. ' ' 

This latter request alludes to an idea, afterwards abandoned, 
of the writer of these pages, about which he had had the honor 
to confer verbally with the Honorable Secretary of State, Mr. 
Richard Olney, of securing, if advisable and possible, from the 
Supreme Court of Madrid, a change of venue in the case of the 
prisoner, so as to have the said case finally tried in the capital 
of the Spanish monarchy far from Havana and from the 
passions and influences adverse to Sanguily which appeared to 
exist in Cuba. 



6o 

That the Honorable Secretary of State kindly complied with 
the wishes of the prisoner's counsel, is shown by this letter. 

Department op State, 

Washington, July 9th, 1896. 

J. I. Rodriguez, Esquire, 

Washington, D. C. 

Sir:— In reply to your letter of the 3rd instant, I have to say 
that our Minister at Madrid has been instructed to see whether 
he can bring about the release of Mr. Julio Sanguily by means 
of the provisions of General Calleja's amnesty proclamation of 
February, 1895. 

This suggestion had also been previously made to Mr. 
Taylor in connection with the effort to obtain Mr. Sanguily' s 
release on bail pending his appeal. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Richard Olney. 

The following correspondence, which is published especially 
for the purpose of showing how much in earnest the writer of 
these pages was in trying to secure the freedom of Sanguily 
through some manner of pardon, independently of whatever 
action the Supreme Court of Spain might deem proper to take, 
will also prove that the diplomatic machinery of the United 
States was not as unfriendly to the prisoner, or as slow in act- 
ing in his favor, as the enemies of Mr. Cleveland's administra- 
tion, cum ira et studio towards it, not for love to Sanguily, or 
even for the sake of principle, have attempted to represent. 

Washington, D. C, July 21, 1896. 

Honorable Hannis Taylor, 

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 

of the United States of America, etc., etc., etc., Madrid. 

Dear Sir : — I know well that when a Diplomatic representa- 
tive is conducting a negotiation, in the name of his Government 
and in behalf of one of his fellow citizens, any attempt of the 
latter or of his counsel to make suggestions, or communicate 



6\ 

ideas, no matter how respectfully, might perhaps be considered, 
with reason, as a kind of intrusion, difficult to be forgiven. 
And I know better than all, because I, as counsel for the claim- 
ant in the Mora case can speak on the subject upon personal 
experience, that when that diplomatic representative is Mr. 
Hannis Taylor, — backed by such a man as Mr. Richard Olney, 
— all suggestions, or communication of ideas besides being 
blamable in general are particularly unnecessary. But as 
Mr. Olney told me that he had sent to you my letter on behalf 
of Julio Sanguily, a prisoner for over sixteen months in the 
Fortress L,a Cabana at Havana, with instructions to do your 
best to secure the application to him of General Calleja's 
indulto of February 25th, 1895, anc * as something has happened 
in Havana of official character which might help your efforts 
in that direction, I venture to address this letter to you, not 
without accompanying it with a sincere appeal to your kind- 
ness and forbearance. 

The prisoner himself has sent to me from Havana, in letter 
received to-day, the inclosed slip of a newspaper containing the 
circular issued on the 9th instant by General Weyler of Cuba, 
indicative of a spirit of comparative leniency towards political 
prisoners. And I have thought of sending it to you, both 
because of the absence of Mr. Olney, to whom otherwise I 
would have shown the paper, and because of the assistance 
which it might give you, if any, in conducting this negotiation. 
— If the birthday of Her Majesty the Queen Regent brought 
about as a very appropriate celebration the freedom of prisoners 
subject to military jurisdiction in Cuba, why would not the 
same spirit pervade the spheres of civil justice and aid in 
securing the liberation of Sanguily ? 

I beg to be allowed to say, as I had the honor to say to Mr. 
Olney, and he said that it was true, that every day which is 
added to the sixteen months of imprisonment which my client 
has already suffered increases his danger immensely. His 
safety may be said to be dependent now upon the preservation 
of the present aspect of the political sky. If for any cause 
whatever, domestic or international, that sky grows darker : 
who can foretell what may happen to the prisoner ? This is 
one reason more for which it is to be hoped that the success 
of your efforts may be speedily obtained. 

With feelings of sincere distinguished consideration, I am 
happy to subscribe myself your obedient servant. 

J. I. Rodriguez. 

This letter was answered as follows : 



62 

Legation of the United States, 
Madrid, 
San Sebastian, August 14th, 1896. 

J. I. Rodriguez, Esq., 

Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: — I have carefully read your letter of the 21st ult. 
and I am very willing to tell you in reply of the special efforts 
which I have made in behalf of your client under the directions 
of the State Department. 

Immediately after receiving the last letter from that source I 
dined with the Minister of State, and in order to make a final 
appeal to him personally I took the letter with me and made it 
the subject of a long conversation after dinner. The result 
was that the Minister promised me to write a personal letter to 
the Prime Minister invoking his special interest in the matter. 
A day or two ago he read me the reply of the Prime Minister, 
written at great length in his own hand, the substance of which 
was that while he personally desired to comply with my request 
he said it was impossible to pardon Sanguily while his brother 
continued to be one of the most dangerous and bloody of the 
insurrectionary chiefs. He said that such an act upon his part 
would cause an outburst of indignation which he could not 
venture to excite. He further said that Sanguily's case would 
be heard in the Tribunal Supremo on the 19th of September, 
and if at that time the case should be reversed and sent back 
for a new trial he would try to have an order made to the effect 
that Sanguily's imprisonment should be made as comfortable 
as possible. Beyond this nothing can be expected, as I have 
exhausted both my personal and official influence in the matter. 
I remain, 

Very truly yours, 

Hannis Taylor. 



Far from feeling discouraged by this result, the writer of 
these pages took advantage of the first opportunity which pre- 
sented itself to him, to submit again this matter, conversation- 
ally, to the attention of the Honorable Secretary of State, and 
request a further effort in favor of the prisoner, by showing 
to the Spanish Government how unjust it would be on its part, 
and how much at variance with its friendly feelings towards 
the United States and towards the prisoner himself, to make 



63 

the latter suffer for the alleged doings, whatever they might 
be, of his brother. It was at that conference, when in discuss- 
ing the possibility to find out some proper way of removing 
the apprehensions' felt by Spain as to Sanguily's conduct 
towards her, subsequent to his release, the idea that Sanguily 
could be paroled was naturally suggested and accepted. 

Julio Sanguily, although a Cuban by birth, was a citizen of 
the United States of America, who in becoming such had 
solemnly declared on oath, before the court which admitted 
him to citizenship, that " he absolutely and entirely renounced 
and abjured all allegiance and fidelity," not only to Spain, but 
" to every foreign Prince, Potentate or Sovereignty;" foreign 
in this case meaning "foreign to the United States of America," 
which certainly includes Cuba. He, as such a citizen of the 
United States of America, had the plain duty to be, while 
living in Cuba at least, perfectly neutral in the contest between 
Cuba and Spain. He had said, furthermore, and insisted upon 
it repeatedly, that he had had nothing to do with the present 
Cuban revolution and had kept aloof from it, a statement 
which was corroborated by the deposition of Don Antonio 
Lopez Coloma, who paid with his life his allegiance to the 
Cuban cause and said that he did not think, in spite of what 
he had been told, Sanguily would ever join the insurrection. 
In pledging his word of honor not to take arms against Spain, 
if released, Sanguily besides satisfying his obligations as a law 
abiding citizen of the United States of America, would not by 
any means violate any duty belonging to him as a Cuban, 
because one thing is to be a Cuban and a lover of the liberty 
of Cuba and of her independence from Spain, and to be ready 
to sacrifice all things for the success of that undertaking, as 
Sanguily had done during the war of 1 868-1878, and another 
thing is to approve of and join the revolution which broke out 
in the Island of Cuba on February 24th, 1895. He had ex- 
pressed repeatedly, in his letters to the writer of these pages, 
that he wanted to get out through the indultoes of Generals 



6 4 

Calleja and Weyler, and place himself therefore in the legal 
position of the presentados, or men who had abandoned the 
rebellion and surrendered to Spain. Many a military leader, 
of great merit and renown, even when engaged in actual war, 
did not hesitate to submit to the necessities of the occasion 
and seek for liberty on parole. For these and some other 
reasons, the writer of these pages deemed it to be his duty to 
call the attention of his client to the conversation aforesaid and 
to expectation entertained by him that a negotiation with the 
Spanish Government, on such a base as this, would probably 
be successful. Sanguily was left, however, in absolute liberty 
to decide one way or the other, as the impulses of his heart, 
or his engagements, if any, might cause him to do. 

The letter of Sanguily 's counsel, wherein this plan was de- 
veloped to the proper extent, was not written to him directly 
for fear that it might fall into Spanish hands. It was written 
to the United States Vice-Consul General at Havana, Mr. 
Joseph A. Springer, a common friend of the prisoner and of 
his counsel here, and in it Mr. Springer was requested to go 
and see Sanguily, at Fortress La Cabana, or in some other 
proper way communicate with the prisoner, make him ac- 
quainted with the plan, and hear and transmit his decision. 

The result of this step can be shown by the following letter : — 

United States Consulate General, 

Havana, Cuba, October 22nd, 1896. 

Jose Ignacio Rodriguez, Esq., 

Washington, U. S. A. 

My Dear Sir: — Your letter to Mr. Springer, Vice-Consul 
here, dated October 13th, has been properly referred to me. 

You write that if Julio Sanguily will take his liberty on a 
pledge or parole, that he will not take up arms against the 
Spanish Government here, during the continuance of the pre- 
sent war, and that he will not aid, directly or indirectly, the 
insurgents, as they are called here, during the period above 
referred to, an effort will be made by the proper authorities to 
have him released from his cell in Fort " Cabanas," where he 
has been confined now for some 20 months. 



6 5 

I am prepared to state in reply, that Sanguily will sign any 
pledge or parole, concerning the points I have named, and that 
he will leave the Island and reside in the United States, during 
the war now being waged on it. 

I hope this can be done, because of the long confinement 
Sanguily has already experienced (and the re-trial of his case 
means, probably, further long imprisonment) , and because he 
is suffering from impaired health and old wounds. 

The particular parole to be used might be drawn by the 
Spanish authorities. 

Very truly yours, 

Fitzhugh L,EE, 

Consul-General. 



The fact that Sanguily as late as September 30th, 1896, was 
still urging Consul-General L,ee, ' ' to insist before the Spanish 
authorities for his release on pardon under the terms of General 
Calleja's proclamation of amnesty (see General L,ee to Mr. 
Rockhill, Mr. Sanguily to General L,ee, and General Lee to 
Mr. Sanguily, Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th Congress, 2d Session, 
pages 87 and 88), will help to explain the facility, it might be 
said the eagerness, with which the prisoner acquiesced to be 
paroled. The letter of his counsel had left Washington, if it 
left at its date, on the 13th of October, 1896, and nine days 
afterwards the acquiescence of the prisoner had been expressed. 

The writer of these pages was so anxious to secure the release 
of his client, so sure of the earnest and sincere support which 
anything conducive to obtain his liberty, or that of any other 
citizen of the United States of America in Sanguily' s predica- 
ment, would find on the part of the State Department, — and so 
fully convinced that the real obstacle which prevented Spain 
from releasing Sanguily was the fear that he would do, when re- 
leased, as Aguirre and Carrillo had done, — that without waiting 
for any further evidence of the determination of his client than 
the letter of General Lee above copied, communicated at once 
with the Honorable Secretary of State, transmitting to him the 
original of the said letter and expressing himself as follows : — 



66 

Washington, D. C, 

October 28th, 1896. 

Honorable Richard Olney, 

Secretary of State, etc., etc., etc. 

Sir : — In pursuance of the conversation I had the honor to 
have with you, I communicated with Mr. Julio Sanguily, in 
Havana, and expressed my desire that he should give some 
pledge, satisfactory to Spain, of his determination not to assist, 
if released from imprisonment, the insurrection in Cuba. I did 
not write to him directly, but through the Consulate at Havana, 
for fear that the letter would not reach him, or that its contents 
would be revealed to any one except American officials. The 
letter of General Lee, which I have the honor to inclose, re- 
ceived by me, yesterday afternoon, at a late hour, will show 
you that Mr. Sanguily will, if released, leave the Island and 
reside in the United States, and that he will sign any particular 
parole which the Spanish authorities may draw at their own 
satisfaction. 

I hope that you, having this letter in your possession, will 
be able to negotiate successfully with the Spanish Government 
for the release of a citizen of the United States who has been 
kept in prison ever since February 24th, 1895, who was con- 
victed and sentenced in violation of the law and through errors 
in the proceedings, which if I am not misinformed have now 
been ordered to be corrected by a recent mandate of the 
Supreme Court of Spain. 

I am, sir, very respectfully your obedient servant, 

J. I. Rodriguez. 



The negotiation, however, could not be carried to success as 
promptly as the prisoner's counsel desired. Whether it was 
because Spain did not feel satisfied with the manifestations of 
the prisoner through Consul-General Lee, and needed some- 
thing stronger or more direct from the prisoner himself, or 
because of other facts and circumstances which it is unnecessary 
to explain, the fact is that three months elapsed without any 
practical result having been obtained. 

From the correspondence subsequent to Document No. 104, 
Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, printed in Foreign Relations 
of the United States, iSp6, page 844 and the following, it 



6 7 

appears that Sanguily in addition to the verbal statements 
which General Lee had reported on October 22, 1896, signed 
on January 21, 1897, one copy in English and another copy in 
Spanish, of the following paper : 

I, Julio Sanguily, an American citizen, confined at La 
Cabana Fortress, Havana, do hereby sacredly affirm to the 
United States and to Spain, that if I am released by pardon of 
the latter Government, I will leave and remain away from 
Cuba, and will not aid directly or indirectly the present insur- 
rection against the Government of Spain; and I hereby promise 
that should I do so at any time I will not claim the protection 
of the United States Government. I certify that this pledge is 
given of my own free will and without compulsion on the part 
of any one. 

Fortress La Cabana, 

Havana, January 21st, 1897. Julio Sanguily. 

Witnesses : Ernesto La Fosca, 
Donnell Rockwell. 

Seven days afterwards, for some reason or other, which the 
record does not explain, Sanguily signed a second pledge as to 
his intentions in regard to the former one. General Lee tele- 
graphed to the State Department, January 28th, 1897, as 
follows : — 

Sanguily signed personal pledge to me that he will faith- 
fully observe terms already mailed. Recommend case be con- 
sidered on said terms. {Foreign Relations of the United 
States, 1896, page 845.) 



68 

IX. 

SECOND TRIAL AND SENTENCE. 

While the efforts to secure the pardon of the prisoner, as re- 
ferred to in the preceding chapter, were being made, the second 
trial took place, and the second sentence was pronounced. 

The new trial began on the 21st and terminated on the 23rd 
of December, 1896, the Government being represented by the 
Prosecuting Attorney Seiior Don Joaquin Vidal y Gomez, and 
the prisoner by his new lawyer Doctor Don Antonio Meza y 
Dominguez. An account of the proceedings was transmitted 
by Vice-Consul Springer to Assistant Secretary of State Mr. 
Rockhill, on December 24th, 1896 (Doc. No. 104, Senate, 
54th Congress, 2nd session, page 92); and from it and from 
the accounts of the Havana newspapers, the fact can be dis- 
closed that the defense was conducted substantially on the fol- 
lowing grounds : ( 1 ) The nullity of all proceedings of mili- 
tary origin and the a fortiori inadmissibility in evidence against 
Sanguily of whatever was done by the Judge Advocate prior to 
the 1 6th of March, 1896, when the case was transferred from 
military to civil jurisdiction : — (2) The futility of the so- 
called evidence produced against the prisoner: — (3) The denial 
by the prisoner of having been connected in any way whatever 
with the Cuban insurrection. 

The Havana paper called La Lucha published, on Decem- 
ber 23rd, 1895, an account of the trial, in which the argument 
of the prosecution was paid the doubtful compliment of being 
described as passionate to the extreme, palpitante de pasidn; 
and in reality it was no other thing than one of those outbursts 
of rhetorics, which the Spaniards of modern times call eloquence, 
and which is their present substitute for past learning and 
statesmanship. In the opinion of the prosecuting attorney, 
even the candor, called by him arrogance, with which Sanguily 
admitted to have been a General in the Cuban War of 
Independence of 1868-1878, was evidence of his guilt, — as it 



69 

proved, as he said, that Sanguily was capable of committing 
the offense for which he was on trial {A I ver tan arrogante al 
Senor Sanguily lo he creido capaz de su delito). The past 
connection of the prisoner with a war ended seventeen years 
ago, had to drag him necessarily, the prosecution said, to join 
the insurrection {sus antecedentes lo arrastran forzosamente & 
la insurreccidn ) . The naturalization of Sanguily in the 
United States of America rendered him subject, the prosecution 
maintained, at least to suspicion {la segunda naturaleza tiene 
que ser sospechosa). The prisoner in reality was not, in the 
opinion of the prosecution, an American citizen, but a Spaniard ; 
and the reason was, among others, because Sanguily was very 
handsome and his vernacular Spanish. {El Senor Sanguily 
en actitud, en Jig ur a, en gallardia, lleva aunque no quiera, el 
sello de su antigua nacionalidad espanola?) Sanguily was guilty 
because public opinion pointed at him as a leader of prestige. 
{La opinion ptiblica reconoce en Sanguily uno de los cabecillas 
de mas prestigio.) If Sanguily was not convicted, he, the 
prosecuting attorney, although compelled to acknowledge to 
have been defeated, would proclaim however not to have been 
conquered; and the satisfaction of having complied with the 
duty that the Spanish society demanded from him against an 
enemy of Spain would always go with him and comfort him. 
{Si el Tribunal lo absuelve, me confesari vencido, mas no domi- 
nado ; derrotado, pero no vencido : y me quedari satis/echo de 
haber cumplido con mis deberes y con lo que la sociedad espanola 
exige de mi contra los enemigos de la nacidn.') 

Such a cheap firework trash seems to have had some effect 
with the court. The so-called conclusions which the prose- 
cution had made were accepted, and a sentence, adverse to the 
prisoner, was passed on the 28th of December, 1896. Sanguily 
was convicted of the crime of rebellion and condemned to 
imprisonment for life at hard labor. 

This is the text of the sentence : — 



70 

"In the city of Havana, on the 28th of December, 1896:" 

' ' This cause of the Government, on the one side, and Don 
Julio Sanguily y Garitt, a native and a resident of this city, but 
a citizen of the United States of America, 45 years old, married, 
engaged in commercial business, the son of Don Julio Sanguily 
and Dona Maria Garitt de Sanguily, and a man of learning, 
having no criminal record, on the other side, — initiated and 
prosecuted against the latter by the Judge of Kl Cerro District, 
for the crime of rebellion, — having been heard and examined 
by this Section No. 1 of the Criminal Court, all the require- 
ments of law having been fulfilled, the Government having 
been represented by the Prosecuting Attorney, and Don Julio 
Sanguily y Garitt by Don IyUis Plutarco Valdes as solicitor, 
and Don Antonio Meza y Dominguez as counsel : 

Associate Justice Don Ricardo Maya having been placed 
in special charge of the case and entrusted with the duty of 
writing this decision : — 

" 1. Whereas, the fact appears proved that on the 24th of 
February, 1895, by order of the Governor General, Don Julio 
Sanguily y Garitt was arrested at his house in El Cerro Dis- 
trict of this city, because the Governor General had received 
from abroad and from this city confidential information to the 
effect that Sanguily was one of the promoters of the separatist 
rebellion which broke out in this Island on that very same day, 
and that he and Don Jose Maria Aguirre had been chosen to 
be the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the provinces 
of Havana, Matanzas and Santa Clara; — and, furthermore, 
because according to the reports of the police, which had closely 
and efficiently watched the movements of Sanguily, the latter 
had been in communication and correspondence with the Revo- 
lutionary Junta of New York and with other foreign abettors 
of the insurrection, and with the separatist committees secretly 
organized in this Island ; and, finally, because in a report of 
the Governor of the Region of Havana it was stated that 
Don Julio Sanguily, owing to his record in the last war, and to 
the fact that public rumor pointed at him as called to command 
one of the insurgent bands, had become an object of suspicion, 
and had been watched by the authorities : 

"2. Whereas, the Chief of the Police and Police Inspector 
Trujillo, when examined before this Court, said that they had 
not received any express order to watch Don Julio Sanguily, 
that they knew his separatist ideas because they were publicly 
known, and that they had no knowledge that he was con- 
spiring when by order of the Superior authority of the Island 
he was arrested : 



7i 

1 ' 3- Whereas, the prisoner, when examined on the very same 
day of his arrest, stated that he could not remember to have 
spoken at all with any person about separatist movements or 
plans, or received propositions to lead or take part in any up- 
rising : that owing to his political record, he was sure that any 
serious plan which might have been formed in that line would 
have been communicated to him ; and that his being entirely 
ignorant of any such plans was fully proved by the fact that he 
had not moved from Havana, or even from his house, when he 
was arrested : 

"4. Whereas, the fact is proved that Don Antonio Lopez 
Coloma, when made a prisoner by forces of the Army at the 
Casualidad Colony, while commanding a body of insurgents 
which had occupied that place since the 24th of February, 1895, 
was searched by his captors, and that a letter now forming 
page 36 of the record, was found in his pocket and reads as 
follows : — ' Cerro, Saturday, the 9th of February, 1895. — 
Senor Betancourt, Matanzas. — Dear friend : I had intended to 
have a long talk with you ; but as you are always in a hurry 
I could not do it. I asked yesterday, Joaquin Pedroso to 
lend me 25 centenes (*) which I needed to go to-day to the 
country, redeem my revolver and my machete which are 
pawned, and leave something in my house ; but he did not 
give them to me. He said that he had not that money. So 
it is that I cannot move, nor can I even get anything to eat. I 
wish you would hasten, and this is the purpose of this letter, 
to get for me just $2,500, not one cent less, which I need. 
Believe that the situation in my house, if I do not get that 
money soon, will be difficult. On the other hand, as long as I 
remain in this situation, my head will not be able to occupy 
itself of what it is important. Therefore I entreat you to send 
me the said amount as soon as possible, thereby enabling me 
to think only of our affair. I cannot find any one here from 
whom I might borrow 30 or 40 centenes. Had I found such 
a person I would have gone right away to the country and as- 
sisted you in raising the money aforesaid. I have told John 
to-day that Cervantes had no supper to eat on the day on which 
he finished Don Quijote, and that I, on the eve of placing my- 
self at the head of a work of redemption, find myself so penni- 
less as to have been unable to give my cook any monej' to go 
to-day to the market. — Very truly yours, — Gener.' 

"5. Whereas, the fact is proved that two days before the 
uprising of the band of Lopez Coloma, the latter came to 



* A centtn is a Spanish $5 gold coin. 



Havana, by order of Doctor Don Pedro Betancourt, of Matan- 
zas, to see Don Julio Sanguily, Don Jose Maria Aguirre, Don 
Juan Gualberto Gomez and other individuals, numbering 16 
in all, inform them that on the morning of the said 24th of 
February, 1895, quite a number of people from Havana would 
go to the Casualidad estate, where sufficient arms and ammu- 
nitions had been deposited, and ask them to place themselves 
under the command of said Betancourt, and temporarily, during 
his absence, either of Lopez Coloma himself or of Juan Gualberto 
Gomez : — and that the letter above copied, signed Gener, had 
been sent to Lopez Coloma by Betancourt, who, as it seems, 
became indignant at the action of the man who wrote it, to the 
extreme of doubting his good faith, because, as it appeared, no 
part would be taken by him in the movement if the money 
asked for was not sent : 

" 6. Whereas, Don Antonio Lopez Coloma said that he had 
not had any conference with Sanguily, whom he only knew 
by sight, and that through Betancourt only he knew that 
Sanguily and Aguirre should lead the movement : 

" 7. Whereas, Don Julio Sanguily while constantly denying, 
in all the stages of the case, to have had any intervention in 
the separatist conspiracy, or to have entered into any engage- 
ment with the conspirators, has contradicted the statements of 
Lopez Coloma, by saying that the latter came to see him and 
tried to induce him to join the rebellion, which he refused to 
do, and that he (Sanguily) had endeavored to dissuade Lopez 
Coloma, and to show him that the movement was ill advised 
and imprudent, — all of which he supplemented by saying that 
he had not had with Betancourt any other relations than those 
purely social: 

"8. Whereas, the fact is proved that the Judge who con- 
ducted the proceedings received an anonymous communication 
enclosing a letter, which was put on file, for what it might be 
worth (page 45 of the record), and reads as follows: — ' Cerro, 
Thursday, the 14th of February, 1895 — Esteemed Friend : I 
have been indoors for several days, on account of illness, both 
of mine and of my wife. — The latter is still in delicate con- 
dition. Do me the favor to explain this to His Excellency. 
I had promised to go and personally confer with His Excellency 
about the banished man, Michelena ; but I have been unable 
to go out. I have to communicate something of interest about 
this matter, as the police officer is again troubling him. I 
cannot go out and see you to-day, as requested, because I have 
taken a medicine ; but I will go to-morrow. Believe that no 
man rejoices more than I that you feel better. — Your affect- 
ionate friend. — Julio Sanguily.' 



73 

" g. Whereas, it appears that the two letters referred to in 
the preceding clauses were shown to the prisoner for the pur- 
pose of identification ; and that he, in all the stages of the 
case, persistently denied to have written the one signed 'Gener,' 
while in regard to the other letter of page 45 of the record, he 
at first said, during the preliminary proceedings, that the letter 
was his, and then, during the trial, he doubted the accuracy 
of his former statement, because the letter which he had really 
written had been written to a gentleman : 

"10. Whereas, the fact is proved that the experts in cali- 
graphy who examined both letters and compared them with 
others which are undoubtedly in the handwriting of Don Julio 
Sanguily, stated their opinion, that, owing to the similarity of 
the handwriting in all of them, they all were written by the 
same person, — this identity being in the judgment of the court, 
upon their own inspection of the documents, a perfectly well- 
established fact : 

"11. Whereas, the fact is proved that on or about Novem- 
ber, 1894, Don Julio Sanguily pawned at the pawnbroker's 
office called ' L,a Equitativa,' corner of Compostela and L,uz 
streets, in this city, a machete and a revolver, — and that both 
articles were sold by the pawnbroker, in April, 1895, with the 
consent of the prisoner, who was then at La Cabana and ex- 
pected to be sent to Spain : 

"12. Whereas, the fact is proved that the police of this city 
having been informed that Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy was 
expected to arrive in Havana, on board the American steamer 
from Tampa, which was due on the 29th of May, 1895, and 
that he was the bearer of important papers of revolutionary 
character, waited for his arrival, and arrested him ; and that 
then, it was found that the said Azcuy carried inside the knot 
or beau of his necktie a paper which Police Inspector Trujillo 
seized, but which was snatched from his hands by Mr. Azcuy, 
who put it in his mouth and endeavored to swallow it, a 
struggle between the Police Inspector and his prisoner having 
then taken place, with the result that the fragments in page 
236 of the record were recovered : 

" 13. Whereas, the fact is proved that shortly before the 
outbreak of the present separatist revolution Don Nemesio 
Azcuy sent Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy to Tampa to bring back 
to Havana a son of his who was at that place ; and that the 
said Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy did not succeed in bringing 
back the young man and returned to Havana without him : 
that he, while in Tampa, used to call himself a colonel 
and liked to be addressed in such way, and that Don Enrique 



74 

Collazo told him that only in the war the position and the rank 
of a colonel could be won : 

"14. Whereas, the fact is proved both by the testimony of 
Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy and by the context of the fragments 
of page 236, that the paper found in Azcuy 's necktie was his 
commission as colonel in the insurgent army, issued by one 
who called himself competently authorized to make the appoint- 
ment, giving him power to organize forces and situate them 
at the places which he might deem advisable, and to make in 
his turn such other appointments as were necessary, — all of it 
written in the handwriting of Julio Sanguily and signed by 
him, as testified by the experts in caligraphy, whose opinion 
the court indorses, upon actual inspection and comparison of 
the handwriting of that paper with all others on file : 

"15. Whereas, the fact is proved that two officers of the 
Civil Guard and the Police Inspector of the town of Aguacate, 
who had gone in the early part of May, 1895, to the San 
Rafael estate, belonging to the Portela family, to see some 
furniture which was for sale there, having obtained permission 
of a negro woman called Caridad Manzano, who was in charge 
of the estate, to go through the different rooms of the dwelling 
house, found in the parlor, hanging on the wall, one carbine 
which Sanguily has acknowledged to belong to him, and which 
he says to have used for hunting purposes, whenever he came 
to that estate, as he frequently did : and that the same officers 
and Police Inspector found also in a wardrobe several papers, 
among them a diary kept by Sanguily which has not been 
offered in evidence, a pamphlet on the independence of 
Cuba and the letter on file from page 94 to page 97 of 
the record : 

"16. Whereas, the fact is proved that the said letter, 
written abroad and dated December 9th, 1893, refers to 
preparations for a rebellion in Cuba, and says that the move- 
ment ought to be started in the Island and not outside of its 
territory, — that he (the man to whom it is addressed) ought 
not to place himself in a subordinate position, or receive orders 
from other chiefs, because none was more entitled than him, 
for his respectability, the guarantee which his name as a 
revolutionist and a soldier offered the rebellion, and the posi- 
tion that he always had held in the party, to exercise the 
command, — neither a Sartorius, nor a John Nobody, ought 
to be allowed in preference to him to claim the glory of 
having caused the dreams of a part of the population of Cuba 
to be materialized ; — that he, being a man adored by the 
Cubans, ought not to allow any other person to occupy his 



75 

place of honor, — that he ought to start at once and gather the 
resources necessary for the movement, whether voluntarily, from 
those who had offered assistance, or by force, he being assured, 
in the meantime, that proper care would be taken of the sup- 
port of his family : 

"17. Whereas, the fact is proved that this letter, in spite of 
the opinion of the experts in caligraphy, was not written by 
Don Julio Sanguily, — because, even if its statements are dis- 
regarded, the comparison made by the court between its hand- 
writing and that of the other papers on file, allows the court 
positively to say that it was written by a different person : 

"18. Whereas, the fact is proved that Sanguily registered 
himself at the office of the Governor-General of the Island, on 
July 8th, 1889, as a citizen of the United States of America, 
and that owing to his character as such a citizen of the United 
States of America the ordinary courts of justice have taken 
cognizance of this case, under the protocol of 1877 (*): 

"19. Whereas, the sentence passed in this cause, on Decem- 
ber 2nd, 1895, by Section No. 3 of this Court, was revoked by 
the Supreme Court, because of the rejection of certain evidence 
offered on behalf of the prisoner, which evidence, however, 
has never been produced in the second trial : 

' ' 20. Whereas, the prosecuting attorney in submitting his 
conclusions, stated that the prisoner, Don Julio Sanguily y 
Garitt, an American citizen since 1878, and a native and a 
resident of this Island of Cuba, had been, up to the day of his 
arrest, namely the 24th of February, 1895, one °f tne m ost 
active promoters and instigators of the armed insurrection 
which broke out on that date against the mother country, for 
the purpose of securing the independence of this Island ; that 
he had been selected to lead the insurrectionary movement in 
this province and in those of Matanzas and Santa Clara ; 
that he, in his capacity of chief and principal leader of the 
movement and as delegate of the Revolutionary Junta estab- 
lished at New York, had made such appointments, as he had 
deemed conducive to the success of his plans, as for instance 
the one of Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy to be a colonel in the 
insurgent army ; and that, in view of these facts, the prisoner 
ought to be adjudged guilty of rebellion, as defined by section 



(*) This childish attempt of the court to base the treaty rights of an 
American citizen, not upon the fact that he is such an American citizen, 
whether matriculated or not, but upon the fact of his matriculation, — an 
attempt which has been over and over discredited and defeated, — shows 
perhaps more strongly than anything else the condition of things which 
prevailed in Havana at the time of the decision. 



76 

i, article 237 of the Penal Code, without any extenuating 
circumstances, and punished as provided by article 238 of the 
same, with imprisonment for life at hard labor, and with the 
other penalties provided by article 53 of said Code, and the 
payment of half of the costs of the trial : 

"21. Whereas, the defence maintained that there was no 
legal ground to convict Don Julio Sanguily, asked for a verdict 
of acquital, and claimed in favor of the prisoner, even if con- 
victed, the benefit of the amnesty of February 27, 1895 : 



Considering : 

' ' 1st. That while in the proper disposition of all criminal 
cases it is always of interest for the court to become acquainted 
with the history and the personal record of the party on trial, 
said record and history being safe guides to pass judgment 
about the capability or aptness of the said party to commit 
the offense with which it is charged, — such a knowledge is still 
more necessary in cases for rebellion, as the commission of a 
crime of this nature presupposes a clear and well known 
purpose in that direction on the part of the rebel, and a 
certain degree of firmness and determination on his part to 
carry out his criminal purposes : 

" 2d. That the personal record of Don Julio Sanguily shows 
that for some years he was fighting in Cuba against the 
sovereignty of Spain, and that when convinced that he could 
not separate Cuba from Spain he gave up and relinquished his 
Spanish allegiance, all of which demonstrates his deep and well 
rooted separatist sentiments, which as long as concealed within 
his own mind could escape penal sanction, but which when 
made public by verbal and written arrangements, and by other 
punishable acts, serves to reveal that Sanguily 's old criminal 
tendencies have not been changed either through time or repent- 
ance ; — it being therefore proper for the court in order to form an 
exact idea of the charge and the proof thereof, to take careful 
notice of all the facts relating to the prisoner's history, without 
thereby forgetting that the latter is to be adjudged guilty, or be 
acquitted only upon evidence relating to the specific charge 
preferred against him : 

" 3d. That at the time in which the revolution was about to 
break out, Don Julio Sanguily y Garitt, was considered by the 
authorities who are entrusted with the duty of preserving 
public peace and security as a decided separatist, and that the 
information transmitted to the superior authority of this Island, 



77 

subsequently corroborated, represented him as one of the 
boldest promoters and leaders of the insurgent movement, who 
was for that purpose in relation with the revolutionary agents 
abroad and with the separatist committees of this Island, — a 
charge which is not destroyed or weakened by the fact that 
neither Don Jose Paglieri nor Don Jose Trujillo received special 
orders, in spite of their positions in the police, to watch San- 
guily, because it was optional for the superior authority to use 
the services of those two officials, or to employ others to assist 
in the investigation : 

"4th. That it is not rash to suppose that the letter found in 
the house at the San Rafael Estate, which Sanguily frequented 
so much, was really written to him in 1893, and was his pro- 
perty ; this idea being confirmed by the fact that all the other 
papers which were found together with the said letter, at the 
same place and at the same time, and which have been returned 
to Sanguily, belonged to him, not to say anything of the 
coincidence between the description made in the letter of the 
man to whom it was addressed, and the record and the circum- 
stances of the prisoner, a coincidence which is so striking as 
to leave little doubt of their identity ; — all of which indicates 
that Sanguily had been conspiring long before his arrest : 

"5th. That the explanation given by Don Julio Sanguily 
for doubting the authenticity of the letter spoken of in 
the 7th Whereas, which authenticity he had acknowledged in 
the preliminary examination, is not satisfactory ; that the said 
letter is therefore to be considered as written by Sanguily ; and 
that this being the case, the other letter referred to in the 4th 
Whereas, which Don Pedro Betancourt sent to Don Antonio 
Lopez Coloma, is also Sanguily 's, because not only of the 
absolute identity of the handwriting in both letters, but also on 
account of other minor details, as for instance the habit of 
naming the day of the week when writing the date, and the 
fact that it refers to the pawning of a machete and a revolver, 
an act which coincides with another of the same nature done 
by the prisoner: 

"6th. That in the said letter Sanguily acknowledged his 
character of chief of the separatist movement, by lamenting 
to be so poor when about to place himself at the head of a work 
of redemption ; a phrase which cannot possibly be miscon- 
strued, either because of its own plain import or because 
of the feeling of indignation which Don Pedro Betancourt 
experienced when he saw that a sum of money was demanded 
by the writer as a condition previous to his lending, as ex- 
pected, his personal and principal assistance to the insurrection : 



78 

" jth. That a further proof of the guilt of Sanguily is the 
appointment made by him of Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy to be 
a colonel in the insurgent army, a fact which shows not only 
that he took an active part in the preparation of this criminal 
struggle, but also that he was a chief, because only those 
who exercise authority can make appointments, or organize 
the forces which they propose to lead : 

"8th. That according to Section i of Article 237 of the 
Penal Code those who publicly rise up in open hostility to the 
government to proclaim the independence of the islands of 
Cuba or Puerto Rico, are guilty of rebellion, — and that accord- 
ing to Article 238 of the same Code, those who promote the 
rebellion, or plan or support it, and are principal leaders, incur 
the full penalty of the law, even if they do not go to the field and 
show themselves there in personal and open rebellion against 
the government, — their character of promoters or leaders being 
sufficient to render them liable to the punishment provided for 
in Article 238 aforesaid : 

" 9th. That Don Julio Sanguily having been recognized as 
chief by Don Pedro Betancourt in the letter of February 9th, 
having been waited for by Don Antonio Lopez Coloma to 
conduct the separatist war in the provinces of Matanzas and 
Havana, having made appointments of such importance as 
that which he made of colonel in favor of Don Jose Inocencio 
Azcuy, is and must be adjudged, for penal purposes, a principal 
leader in the insurrection ; and that he is therefore to be 
punished, with either imprisonment for life at hard labor, or 
with death, the former penalty to be chosen because of the fact 
that no aggravating circumstances appear from the record : 

" 10th. That the weapon belonging to the prisoner, seized 
at the estate above named, must be confiscated, as provided by 
article 7 1 of the Code : and that the prisoner must also be con- 
demned to pay the costs of the trial : 

" nth. That the benefits of the amnesty of February 27th, 
1895, are not applicable to Don Julio Sanguily who did not 
surrender himself to the proper authorities : 

' ' Upon examination of the articles above cited of the Penal 
Code, and of articles 1, n, 12, 26, 53, 62, 78 and 89 of the 
same, and article 741 of the Law of Criminal Procedure ; 

"We do hereby decide: that we must condemn, as we do, 
Don Julio Sanguily y Garitt to imprisonment for life at hard 
labor, with the accessory penalties of deprivation of civil rights 
and perpetual vigilance by the authorities, — and in case that 
he be granted a pardon, and thereby be relieved from the 
imprisonment, to perpetual disability and subjection to perpetual 



79 

vigilance by the authorities, unless these two penalties are also 
expressly wiped' out in the pardon, — and to the payment of 
one half of the costs of the trial. We declare furthermore that 
the weapon seized in this case must be forfeited to the use of 
the Government and that it should be delivered to the Military 
Governor of this city : and finally, and for the purposes of 
this sentence, we do also declare the prisoner to be insolvent. 
"And by this our sentence, we have so adjudged, ordered 
and decreed. Witness our hands. 

' ' Ricardo Maya, 

"Juan Valdes Pages, 

" Adolfo Astudillo de Guzman, 

4 ' Manuel Vias Ochoteco, 

"Jose Novo y Garcia." 



8o 
x. 

THE COMMUTATION OF THE SENTENCE AND THE 
RELEASE OF THE PRISONER. 

How little practical effect can be put to the credit of the 
foregoing decision, in spite of its length and its elaborate 
pomposity, can be easily discovered by a simple comparison 
between its date, and the date of the release of the prisoner. 
The sentence had been passed on the 28th of December, 1896, — 
and less than two months afterwards, on the 25th of February, 
1897, tri e man whom it condemned to imprisonment for life in 
chains and at hard labor, had recovered his liberty, gone out 
of the fortress where he had been kept for two years, and 
allowed to return, as he had promised, to his adopted country. 

Sanguily's lawyer in Cuba had taken an appeal, as it was 
his duty, against the sentence of the Court, and had fixed 
every thing in the proper shape so as to insure that the case 
should again be transferred, upon a writ of error, to the 
Supreme Court at Madrid. But this prudent step, which no 
other man of the professional eminence which Sanguily's 
counsel had deservedly reached would have failed to take, 
gave, however, occasion to a somewhat serious difficulty, which 
thanks to his good sense could be promptly removed. 

The interposition of the appeal, which paralyzed for a 
moment the diplomatic effort, had practically the effect of 
obstructing, pro forma at least, the realization of the agree- 
ment which had been entered into between the two govern- 
ments, because it was alleged, and alleged with reason, that 
the pardoning power of Her Majesty the Queen Regent of 
Spain could not, under the laws, be called into exercise, until 
after the sentence of the court had become final (*). And it was 



(*) Even Senator Frye, who was so unmerciful in scolding Sanguily's 
lawyer for the withdrawal of the appeal, had to admit that otherwise the 
release of Sanguily could not have been then obtained Spain, he said, 
"could not pardon him (Sanguily) until he was a sentenced criminal, 
which is the law of all nations." — {Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 
2nd Session, February 25, 1897, page 2383.) 



8i 

for this reason that the Spanish Government, while reaching 
the conclusion to comply with the wishes of the United States, 
by releasing Sanguily from imprisonment, as it was duly 
communicated to the State Department, suggested also, separ- 
ately, that in order to expedite matters the appeal which had 
been taken should be withdrawn. 

This suggestion was made in the following manner : 

LEGATION OF SPAIN IN WASHINGTON, 

February 22nd, 1897. 
(Personal and private.) 

Mr. Secretary : — Referring to the confidential note which I 
have had the honor to address to Your Excellency, on this 
date, relating to the American citizen Julio Sanguily, I have 
the honor to inform Your Excellency confidentially that in 
order that the benevolent intentions of H. M. the Queen Regent 
of Spain with regard- to that citizen may take effect, it is neces- 
sary that he should withdraw the appeal which he has taken 
against the sentence of the court which condemned him. 

It is absolutely necessary under the Spanish laws that in 
order that Her Majesty may exercise the right of pardon the 
sentence should be final. 

The Minister of the Colonies in obedience to the order of the 
Council of Ministers has telegraphed to Cuba to have the 
necessary proceedings expedited, in case that Sanguily, or his 
counsel, withdraws the appeal taken. 

When this is done, and when the pardon can be decreed in 
accordance with the law, it will be communicated by cable. 

I avail myself, Mr. Secretary, etc., etc. 

E. Dupuy de Lome. 
Hon. Richard Olney, 

etc., etc., etc. (*) 

Upon the receipt of this letter the Honorable Secretary of 
State telegraphed to Consul-General Lee at Havana, in the 
following language : 



(*) A copy of this letter was given by the Honorable Secretary of 
State, Mr. Richard Olney, to the Honorable Chairman of the Committee 
on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, on the 24th of Febru- 
ary, 1897. It was published in full with other papers in the Washington 
Post of February 28th, 1897. 



82 

Department op State, 
Washington, February 23d, 1897. 

Inform Julio Sanguily and his counsel that in order to perfect 
issuance of pardon, appeal should be withdrawn and notice of 
withdrawal at once given here and in Madrid. 

Olney. 



The response which was given to this dispatch was prompt 
and satisfactory. No hesitation was shown. No questions 
were asked. No doubts were entertained. Full reliance was 
placed upon the action of the distinguished head of the Wash- 
ington State Department, and all the papers necessary to 
effectually withdraw the appeal were prepared on the same 
day and properly filed. 

Consul-General Lee reported this fact on the 24th of Feb- 
ruary, 1897, by the following telegram: — 

Have absolute withdrawal of appeal Sanguily's case. Can 
so cable Madrid. It is understood, of course, if not pardoned, 
appeal be again taken, as withdrawal leaves original sentence 
in full force. 

By the removal of this impediment the consummation of the 
plan practically agreed upon since early in February(*), could 
be effected at once. Her Majesty the Queen Regent could 
then, with no impropriety, exercise her high prerogative. 
And so she was pleased to do by the following decree : 

In conformity with the opinion of my Council of Ministers, 
and in use of the power vested in me under section 3rd, article 
24, of the Constitution : 

Upon inspection of the law of June 18th, 1870, which 



(*) A letter of the Honorable Secretary of State, Mr. Richard Olney, to 
the Honorable Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the 
United States Senate, Mr. John Sherman, dated February 17, 1897, and 
published in the Washington Post of February 28, 1897, states that "a 
cable from Madrid ordering the release (of Sanguily) may be expected 
any moment." 



83 

regulates the exercise of the pardoning power, and acting in 
accordance with articles 3rd, 21st and 29th of the same law: 

Considering that the Government of the United States has 
friendly and confidentially communicated with the Government 
of Spain, and asked the pardon of Julio Sanguily, an American 
citizen, condemned by the Audience of Havana, in a cause for 
rebellion, to imprisonment for life at hard labor, — said appli- 
cation being founded upon the facts that the prisoner has 
suffered already about two years of incarceration, that while 
he, the said prisoner, could possibly, at the outbreak of the 
insurrection in Cuba, have endangered there the safety of 
Spain, such is not now the case under the very different circum- 
stances which exist at present, and that he, the said prisoner, 
has solemnly pledged his word to the two Governments, as set 
forth in writing by him, that he will not aid directly or indirectly 
the present insurrection : 

In the name of my august son the King Don Alfonso 
XIII. , and as Queen Regent of the kingdom : 

I do hereby commute into perpetual banishment and the 
disabilities incident and subsequent thereto the penalties of 
imprisonment for life at hard labor and civil interdiction 
imposed upon Don Julio Sanguily by the Audience of Havana 
in cause for rebellion. 

Given at Palace on the twenty-fifth of February, eighteen 
hundred and ninety-seven. 

Maria Cristina. 
Tom as Casteixanos y Villaroya, 

Minister for the Colonies. 



As this decision of Her Majesty was transmitted at once by 
cable to the Governor- General of Cuba, the official who was 
acting as such, during the absence of General Weyler, could 
write almost immediately to Consul-General I,ee, in the follow- 
ing terms : 

Havana, February 25th, 1897. 

The Minister of the Colonies telegraphs to me to-day that 
Her Majesty the Queen Regent has signed a decree commuting 
the penalties of perpetual imprisonment and civil interdiction 
imposed by the Audience of this territory on the American 
citizen Mr. Julio Sanguily, into that of perpetual exile and its 
accessories. 



§4 

And as I have ordered that the command of Her Majesty be 
complied with, I have the honor to inform you of the above, 
as well as of the fact that proper instructions are now being 
given for the immediate release of the prisoner, so as to enable 
him to leave this port for the United States by the steamer 
sailing next Saturday, the 27th instant. 

May God preserve you many years. 

El Marques de Ahumada. 



A few hours afterwards, Sanguily found himself, a free man 
again, in the office of the United States Consul-General at 
Havana, and together with his family and friends commenced 
his preparations to depart from Cuba. 

The writer of these pages, to whom the Honorable Secretary* 
of State had the kindness to inform, almost instantly, that 
Sanguily had been released, — as Consul-General Lee immedi- 
ately reported by cable, — was favored on the day following, 
with the following communication : 

Washington Office of the Chicago Record, 
William K. Curtis, 

Post Building. 

Washington, D. C, February 26, 1897. 

My Dear Doctor : — Mr. Dupuy, the Spanish Minister, has 
just telephoned that Sanguily will sail from Cuba on the Plant 
Line to-morrow (Saturday), and that he (Mr. Dupuy) is very 
anxious that you should know it at once, and not having your 
address he asks me to inform you. 

Very truly yours, 

J. T. Sutter, Jr. 

This act of courtesy, so much the more to be appreciated as 
it was purely spontaneous and gracious, completed the infor- 
mation of Sanguily' s counsel in this country and caused his 
mind to be at rest. 

Three days afterwards, Julio Sanguily himself telegraphed 
to him (March 2nd) from the S. T. Depot, Tampa, Florida, 
announcing his safe arrival. 



85 

XI. 

CONGRESSIONAL INTERFERENCE. 

Nine months and eleven days had elapsed since the imprison- 
ment of Julio Sanguily, when the idea first occurred to some 
alleged friend of the prisoner to start Congressional action in 
his behalf. Undue advantage was taken undoubtedly of the 
overflowing generosity which in favor of Cuba was always 
shown by the Honorable Mr. Wilkinson Call, Senator from 
Florida, where the voting element is largely Cuban, and 
where, if organized and disciplined, the said vote would per- 
haps be decisive, and an effort was made, successfully, to in- 
duce him to interfere in the prosecution of the case, without 
consulting at all with the State Department, or putting himself 
in touch with the prisoner's regularly constituted agent or 
representative. 

Up to that time the defense of Sanguily had never trans- 
gressed the limits of judicial or diplomatic action ; but from 
this moment forward a new element forced itself in the case, 
which owing to its independence, to its being prompted prin- 
cipally by political reasons, and to the facilities which it 
afforded to create irritation, imposed upon the parties to which 
the interests of the prisoner were legitimately entrusted addi- 
tional anxieties. 

This first interposition consisted in a resolution which some 
one, not sufficiently familiar with the requirements of form and 
courtesy prevailing in such cases, had prepared for the Honor- 
able Mr. Call, and which he consented to introduce in the 
Senate of the United States, on the 5th of December, 1895, 
reading as follows: 

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be directed to send to 
the Senate all the correspondence relating to the trial, con- 
viction and sentence to hard labor for life of General Sanguily, 
an American citizen, for alleged complicity in the war against 
Spain by the Cubans; and if no authentic record should be on 
file in the State Department, that the Secretary of State be 
directed to obtain a copy of the record of such trial. 



86 

The record shows that this resolution having been considered 
by unanimous consent of the Senate, and agreed to, was 
communicated to Consul-General Williams, on December 7th, 
1895, by Assistant Secretary of State Mr. Uhl, with instruction 
to ask and forward to the State Department as soon as practicable 
a certified copy of the record of Sanguily's trial. (Doc. No. 
104, Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 69.) 

The fact that in the opinion of some people something grand 
had been gained by causing, as upon the face of the resolution 
could be maintained, the Senate of the United States to ignore 
the President, to use twice in seven lines imperative language in 
addressing the Secretary of State, as if the latter official were 
a subordinate of the Senate, to designate Sanguily by no other 
name or title than that of General, and to term the Cuban 
struggle "the war against Spain by the Cubans,'' fortunately 
produced the effect of satisfying the authors of the measure 
and quieting their ardor. 

Whether it was for this, or for some other reason, that this 
movement was allowed to die out, without the slightest effort 
having been ever made to find out what had become of the 
"mandate" of the Senate, it is unnecessary to investigate. 
But the fact is that the Honorable Mr. Call's resolution was 
followed by a period of fully thirteen months of absolute repose, 
in which the diplomatic Department of the United States, and 
the counsel for the prisoner, each one in its proper sphere, were 
left undisturbed. 

But on the 5th of January, 1896, the Honorable Mr. Call 
got up again in the Senate of the United States and said as 
follows : 

Mr. President : I submit two resolutions, which I ask may 
be read and printed, and lie over, under the rule, until to- 
morrow morning, when I shall submit some observations upon 
them. 

One of these resolutions, evidently prepared by him person- 
ally, framed in proper language, and aiming at nothing which 
was not practical and reasonable, was couched as follows : 



87 

Resolved, That the President be, as he is hereby, requested 
to send to the Senate, if in his opinion not incompatible with 
the public interest, all the correspondence and reports of the 
Consul-General of the United States at Havana, relating to the 
arrest, imprisonment, trial and condemnation to perpetual im- 
prisonment in chains of Julio Sanguily, a citizen of the United 
States, by the authorities of Spain in Cuba. 

The other, acknowledged by the Honorable Mr. Call to have 
been " prepared by an eminent citizen in Havana, who is 
cognizant of all the facts connected with the case, and a man 
of high character," — and " to reflect the opinions, the feelings 
and the judgment of a man whose name, if it were permitted 
to disclose it, would carry conviction with it everywhere" 
(Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 489), 
was given by the Senate, with the consent of the Honorable 
Mr. Call, the form of a joint resolution, — thereby becoming 
subject to the action of the House of Representatives and to 
the approval of the President. Its language is the following : 

Whereas, Julio Sanguily, an American citizen, arrested in 
his home in Habana the day before the outbreak of the present 
insurrection, has been confined in his cell in the Cabanas prison 
for the past twenty-three months ; and 

Whereas, the lawyer who defended him in his first trial has 
also been imprisoned in said prison ; and 

Whereas, his principal witness, Lopez Coloma, was shot in 
said prison by order of the Spanish authorities immediately 
preceding the second trial of said Sanguily ; and 

Whereas, the attorney who conducted the proceedings in the 
appeal before the authorities at Madrid has since been deprived 
of his office and emoluments attached thereto by the authorities 
at Madrid in consequence thereof ; and 

Whereas, the said Julio Sanguily has been tried and con- 
demned to perpetual imprisonment in chains, without evidence 
against him and without the opportunity of defense: Therefore, 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
President of the United States be instructed to demand the 
immediate release of the said Julio Sanguily with permission 
to return to the United States. 



88 

The wishes of the Honorable Senator were complied with, 
and the resolutions were read and allowed to wait, without 
action, until the day next following. 

The record shows that on that day (January 6th, 1896) the 
Honorable Senator from Florida, after having caused both 
resolutions to be read again by the Secretary, said : "I ask 
that the resolution requesting information may now be ac- 
cepted." To this the Senate agreed, and the resolution was 
passed. (Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, 
page 485.) 

Immediately afterwards he took up his second resolution 
demanding the release of Sanguily, which he acknowledged, 
as has been quoted, not to have been prepared by him but by 
an eminent citizen, etc., etc., and embarked into a lengthy 
speech, which covered other cases besides Sanguily's, and 
dealt most principally with the question of Cuba, the Cuban 
war, and the necessity for the United States to assist the insur- 
gents in wiping out from Cuba the power of Spain. His pur- 
pose was, apparently, to put himself on record, once more, on 
these matters, without aspiring however, for the moment at 
least, to any practical result. "I move," he said: "that the 
joint resolution be referred to the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions and I hope for speedy action on the matter." (Con- 
gressional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 489.) 

In the course of his speech, the Honorable Mr. Call found 
the way to repudiate a second time the paternity of the joint 
resolution which he had consented to introduce. He said : ' 'The 
statements and the preamble of the above resolution were made 
by persons of character and veracity, and the evidence as sub- 
mitted to me from such witnesses authorizes me to say that 
they are true. I am informed from reliable sources that evidence 
of the facts as above stated is to be found amongst the files of 
the State Department." {Ibid page 486.) Perhaps, on this 
account, the responsibility which befalls him for .stating that 
' ' Mr. Sanguily could not secure the services of any lawyer to 



89 

prosecute his case," — that the prisoner was kept in solitary con- 
finement, and "not allowed to see, or to have communication 
by letter, or otherwise, with any person except the authorities 
immediately in charge of him," and that "a witness who 
could have proven Sanguily's entire innocence, namely, L,opez 
Coloma, was a few days before his last trial taken from his cell 
in the Cabanas, where he had been imprisoned for a consider- 
able time, and shot without any trial, as Sanguily said, for the 
purpose of preventing him from testifying" {Ibid page 486), 
is not as grave as might have been otherwise. 

The Senate, which had listened to these remarks, and to 
some others elicited by them, decided to comply with the 
wishes of the Honorable Mr. Call and ordered the joint resolu- 
tion to be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. 

The fact must not be forgotten that although the Honorable 
Senator from Florida declined to explain in the Senate, what 
the sources of his information were, and said : "I am not at 
liberty to give the name," — he came nevertheless, on the follow- 
ing day (Congressional Record, January 7th, 1896, page 545), 
and asked ' ' unanimous consent to present a paper from a 
gentleman who has been elected as a Republican member of 
the next Congress, who has recently been in Havana." He 
moved, further, the said " statement to be read and printed in 
the Record," 

As this motion was agreed to, the record of that day's session 
contains a statement prepared and signed by Mr. Edward B. 
Robbins, which in the part relating to Julio Sanguily, reads as 
follows : 

I also had a talk with Julio Sanguily, who stated that he had 
been confined in the Cabanas for a period of twenty-three 
months. It appears from his statement that the day before 
the rebellion broke out in Cuba, while taking a bath in his 
house, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He was tried 
and condemned to punishment by a military tribunal, the 
sentence being that he should be punished perpetually in 
chains, etc. The United States authorities protested, on the 



90 

ground that Sanguily was a citizen of the United States, he 
having been naturalized in New Orleans and having resided 
there for some time, and that he was taken without arms and 
should be tried by the civil authorities and not the military 
authorities. An appeal was taken to the authorities at Madrid, 
and this sentence was set aside. 

He was retried and a few days ago a similar sentence im- 
posed upon him. The lawyer who conducted the first trial of 
Sanguily was also thrown in prison, and is now in the Cabanas 
along with Sanguily. The lawyer who managed the appeal in 
Spain has been deprived of his office and all emoluments at- 
tached thereto by the authorities at Madrid. A witness who 
could have proven Sanguily's entire innocence, namely, Lopez 
Coloma, was a few days before this last trial taken from his 
cell in the Cabanas, where he had been imprisoned for a con- 
siderable time, and shot without any trial, as Sanguily said, for 
the purpose of preventing him from testifying. 

An appeal must be taken within a few days, or, unless the 
United States interferes, the witness (sic) will be transferred to 
the penal colony in North Africa, in accordance with the sentence 
passed a few days ago. Sanguily stated that he did not believe 
that he could get any lawyer to take his case and conduct his 
appeal, as the fate of his other two lawyers who conducted the 
former proceedings would deter others from undertaking the 
case again. 

Sanguily seems to be a man of about sixty years of age, quite 
gray, and complained that the imprisonment, during the past 
twenty-three months, was breaking his health, so that he could 
not longer endure it : and he desired that the United States 
Government take action in his case at once, by inquiring into 
the cause of his detention and the unfair method by which he 
has been tried and cdhvicted. He claims that there is no pos- 
sible testimony as to his being implicated in the rebellion, but 
that he was simply confined because he might perhaps have 
been guilty of some offense in the future, yet that he was guilty 
of no offense whatever when arrested, and nothing was proven, 
or could be proven against him. 

In response to the request of the Senate, President 
Cleveland transmitted to that body, on February ist, 1897, a 
report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies of 
correspondence concerning the Sanguily case; and the papers 
so sent were referred by the Senate to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations, and ordered to be printed. They form the matter 



9i 



of a printed pamphlet of 96 pages, entitled Document No. 104 
of the Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd session, on the "Arrest, 
imprisonment, etc., of Julio Sanguily," — which was reprinted, 
first, as an "Appendix " to the Senate Report No. 1534, — and 
subsequently with several additions, as a part of the volume 
entitled Foreign Relations of the U?iited States in 1896, from 
page 750 to page 846. 

Upon consideration of these papers, the Committee decided 
to set aside the Joint Resolution introduced by the Honorable 
Mr. Call, which had been marked "Senate Resolution No. 
186, " and report as a substitute, another one which was marked 
" Senate Resolution No. 207 " and reads as follows : 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives in the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
Government of the United States demands the immediate and 
unconditional release of Julio Sanguily, a citizen of the United 
States, from imprisonment and arrest under the charges that 
are pending and are being prosecuted against him in the mili- 
tary and civil courts of Cuba upon alleged grounds of rebellion 
and kidnapping, contrary to the treaty rights of each of said 
Governments and in violation of the laws of nations. 

And the President of the United States is requested to com- 
municate this resolution to the Government of Spain, and to 
demand of that Government such compensation as he shall 
deem just for the imprisonment and sufferings of Julio Sanguily. 

This resolution was submitted in behalf of the committee by 

the Honorable Mr. John T. Morgan, of Alabama, on the 

24th of February, 1897, together with a quite lengthy report 

"(Senate Report No. 1534, 54th Congress, 2nd Session), which 

was ordered to be printed and placed on the calendar. 

In making this submission, the Honorable Mr. Morgan said: 
"I am directed by the Committee on Foreign Relations to 
report a joint resolution which I ask may be read at length. 
The Committee thought it was their duty to request very early 
action upon the joint resolution, but inasmuch as one or more 
members of the Committee were absent at the time, who had 
not the opportunity of understanding the whole subject, it may 






92 

be better that I should give notice, and I will do so, with the 
concurrence of the Hoapxable Chairman of the Committe e, 

* * * that in the morning hour to-morrow the joint resolution 
will be called up for action." 

Xhe Honorable Mr. John Sherman, Senator from Ohio, and 
Chairmaln'of^trie Committee on Foreign Relations having ex- 
pressed his assent to letting the resolution lie over until the 
,.nA following day, an order was made accordingly. (Congress- 
ional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd session, pages 2305 and 
2306.) 

It seems to be the fact that during the twenty-three days 
which elapsed between the reference to the Senate Committee 
on Foreign Relations on February 1st, 1897, of the papers re- 
lating to this case which the President of the United States 
had sent to the Senate, together with a report from the Secre- 
tary of State, and the day on which the Honorable Mr. Morgan 
submitted the report of the Committee, the chairman of the latter 
had interested himself considerably, as it was just, in the con- 
sideration of the subject, and made, as proper and usual in such 
cases, by correspondence and otherwise, such inquiries at the 
State Department as were necessary to aid him in reaching a 
right conclusion, and in conducting properly the deliberations 
of the important body over which he presided. 

The Honorable Mr. Richard Olney had said in his report, 
that "in view of all the circumstances of this case, and 
especially of the long imprisonment already suffered by the 
accused, representations have been made to the Spanish Gov- 
ernment, which it is believed will not be without effect, that 
the case seems to be one in which executive clemency may be 
reasonably exercised," and when, as it appears, the idea came 
to the mind of the Honorable Mr. John Sherman, Chairman 
of the Committee, in consequence of that statement, to send a 
message, seventeen days afterwards to the Honorable Secretary 
of State, asking him for information about the present condition 
of the case, the Honorable Mr. Olney responded as follows : 



93 

Department of State. 

Washington, February 17th, 1897. 
Dear Mr. Sherman : 

In reply to your message of to-day about the Sauguily case, 
I desire to say for your own use and information, exclusively, 
that since my report of February 1st, certain confidential com- 
munications have taken place between this Government and 
the Spanish Government, which I confidently expect to result 
in Sanguily's release. Indeed, I am given to understand that 
a cable from Madrid ordering the release may be expected any 
moment. 

The matter is of a somewhat delicate nature, and I shall be 
very sorry to have the present favorable prospects for Sanguily's 
release injuriously affected, as they would be very likely to be 
by any public discussion of the case in the Senate, or elsewhere. 

Very truly yours, 

Richard Olney. 
Hon. John Sherman, 

United States Senate. 



Four days after this letter, and three before the date in which 
the Honorable Mr. Morgan submitted to the Senate the report 
of the Committee of which he was such a distinguished mem- 
ber, the negotiations, to which the Honorable Secretary of 
State had alluded in the foregoing communication, were ended 
successfully, the Spanish Government having agreed to accede 
to the wishes of the United States, and advise Her Majesty 
the Queen Regent of Spain to exercise in favor of Julio Sanguily 
her pardoning power. 

Reference has been made in the foregoing chapter to the 
letters addressed by the Spanish Minister in Washington to 
the Honorable Secretary of State, on February 22nd, 1897, 
reporting in one the conclusion reached by the Spanish Gov- 
ernment, and suggesting in the other the proper manner of 
removing the purely technical obstruction which had been 
encountered in carrying into effect that decision. 

The facts have been explained furthermore that telegraphic 
instructions were sent to Havana on the 23d of February, 1897, 



94 

by the Honorable Secretary of State to the United States Con- 
sul-General there, concerning the withdrawal of the appeal ; 
that the United States Consul-General telegraphed back on the 
day following (February 24, 1897) that the appeal had been 
withdrawn as desired ; that information of these facts was in- 
stantly transmitted by cable to Madrid ; and that the Honor- 
able Secretary of State in pursuance of the policy which he had 
adopted of keeping the Honorable Chairman of the Senate Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations well posted with all that happened 
in the case, provided him with a copy of the note addressed to 
him by the Spanish Minister on the 22nd of the same month (*) 
and has been printed elsewhere. 

Whether the Honorable Mr. Morgan knew, when he sub- 
mitted his report on the 24th of February, 1897, tnat tne 
culmination of this business had been successfully reached 
three days before ; or whether he, on that memorable 25th of 
February, 1897, urged the passage of Senate Resolution No. 
207, knowing that the case was settled, and that the decree of 
Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, releasing Sanguily 
from imprisonment, was being flashed by cable to the city of 
Havana, and the gates of La Cabanas Fortress being open to 
the prisoner, it is unnecessary to investigate. But the fact is 
that notwithstanding the utter uselessness of the proposed 
measure, it gave occasion to one of the most extraordinary and 

(*) Mr. Olney's letter reads as follows: 

Department of State, 
Washington, February 24, 1897. 
Honorable John Sherman, 

Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations, 

United States Senate. 

Sir : Referring to the case of Julio Sanguily, I am just in receipt of a 
note from the Spanish Minister at this capital, copy of which (in trans- 
lation) I herewith inclose. 

Respectfully yours, 

Richard Olney. 
The inclosure has been printed in page 81. 



95 

excited debates which have ever been witnessed in the Federal 
Senate. 

True it is that as shown by the Record (page 2382, Congres- 
sional Record, February 25th, 1897), that passionate discus- 
sion, where no consideration whatever was shown either to the 
Government of the United States, the Government of Spain, or 
historical truth, was not held in the Senate properly, but in 
the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, a fact which deprived 
the speeches, as well as the measure itself, of all immediate 
practical importance, as it rendered it necessary for the reso- 
lution, even if passed without amendments, to be reported to 
the Senate, and be subject again in it to amendments and 
debate (*). But the freedom of speech, and the absence of 
parliamentary restraint, which were displayed in this case, 
although proper and necessary in all Committee discussions, 
and much more in Committees of the Whole, which were 
devised precisely to facilitate the free exchange of views, open 
the valve to passion, and thoroughly shake up the subject, until 
finding the truth, — created a situation of great danger for the 
liberty of Julio Sanguily, and even for the maintainance of the 
good relations between the United States and Spain. 

Such a distinguished Senator as the Hon. John W. Daniel, 
from Virginia, carried away by his sympathy and good will 
towards the prisoner, was heard to represent the latter as 
"languishing sick and sore and wounded in the Cabanas 
Fortress in Havana," — as "treated rigorously, harshly, cruelly, 
and brutally," — as dealt with in a manner which "is a disgrace 
to this century and to civilization," — and as "compelled by 
sickness, by poverty, by delay, and by the failure of his own 
Government to defend him " * * * "to withdraw the appeal 
as a condition of his liberty." The Honorable Senator ex- 
claimed : " If I represented this country in any place in which 



(*) It has been seen very often, even in the discussions affecting the 
Cuban question, that at the moment of voting, many an ardent supporter 
of extreme measures has failed to be present. 



96 

I could act with authority, I should telegraph Sanguily not to 
withdraw his appeal." 

When in response to this vehement peroration the Honorable 
Mr. Kugene Hale, Senator from Maine, read a telegram an- 
nouncing that Sanguily's lawyer had filed the proper papers 
withdrawing the appeal, his colleague, the Honorable Mr. 
William P. Frye, Senator from the same State, did not hesitate 
a moment in declaring that that distinguished lawyer had 
' ' done an exceedingly wicked and unjust act towards his client " 
indulging afterwards in the utterance which brought down 
upon him the applauses of the galleries, that if he had his way, 
" a ship of war would start forthwith to Havana and deliver 
him." 

Things were carried to such an extreme as to cause the Hon- 
orable Mr. W. V. Allen, Senator from Nebraska, to say that 
it had become necessary to test in some way, " whether there 
was really any sincerity ' ' in all that noise. The Honorable 
Mr. John M. Palmer, from Illinois, was forced also to remind 
the Senate that there was in the White House 4 ' a bold, 
brave, patriotic, manly statesman, whose purpose is to enforce 
the laws of the country and international law," on whom the 
American people could rely, and to say in addition that he 
had listened to the debate attentively, and regarded it " as a 
mere tempest in a teapot." 

The Honorable Mr. John T. Morgan, from Alabama, who 
stated, no doubt upon good authority, that Sanguily "refused 
absolutely to participate in the present rebellion'' because he had 
"some recollections of what he had suffered before," because 
"his wounds would have kept him out of military service," 
and because ' ' his age would have prohibited him from going 
into military service," referred to the first examination of the 
prisoner by the military Judge Advocate as an "Inquisition 
process, worthy of the strong condemnation, performed with- 
out the presence of counsel, or of witnesses." (Congressional 
Record, February 25, 1897, P a g e 2 379») 



97 

In the report of the Committee, which the Record shows was 
never read in the Senate (*), many statements are found to the 
same effect as those copied. It repeats the assertion that " a 
military officer subjected Sanguily to an inquisitorial exami- 
nation at 1 1 o'clock at night, without the presence of witnesses 
or of counsel ; " and states that Sanguily "is now an old and 
feeble man, still suffering from severe wounds received in battle." 
But the principle is strongly vindicated by it, that the duty of 
American citizens to their own country, while residing abroad, 
involves respect and obedience to the laws of their domicile. 
"It is only just and in accord with the well established opinions 
of mankind, " the report says referring to Sanguily, ' 'to attribute 
to a man, who has exhibited high courage and devotion to 
honorable duties, —of which his many wounds are eloquent 
witnesses, — a due sense of obedience to whatever obligations he 
has voluntarily assumed towards the United States with refer- 
ence to Spain, under his petition and oath of naturalization, until 
the contrary is made to appear. In this instance, there is no 
evidence or suggestion growing out of the facts of the case that 
Mr. Sanguily has manifested toward the Spanish authorities in 
Cuba any hostility, ill feeling, or want of due respect to the 
laws. In all respects he has been true to his duty to the United 
States, while residing in Cuba, his native country, under the 
passport and registry of the United States and also of Cuba, 



(*) The report was submitted on February 24, 1897. It was then 
ordered to be printed; and it was printed and distributed in the Senate 
Chamber on February 25th, when it was taken up. The Honorable Mr. 
George F. Hoar, from Massachusetts, got up and said: "I desire to know 
whether the report which has been within sixty seconds, or thereabout, 
laid on my desk, is the report upon this case ? " He being assured that 
it was, added : — "It has just come from the printer. It is a report of 96 
pages. I desire to ask the Senator (the Honorable Mr. Morgan) if he 
does not think the members of the Senate ought to have an opportunity 
to read the report before they act upon the joint resolution, and that the 
matter ought to go over long enough to enable us to read it ? — I never 
have seen it before." (Congressional Record, February 25, 1897, page 
2379-) 



98 

and the only ground of proceeding against him in Cuba has 
been an unjust suspicion, derived from the honorable and 
devotional courage he exhibited in his efforts to free Cuba from 
Spanish dominion in the former revolution that ended nearly 
twenty years ago." 

At the conclusion of this extraordinary debate, the joint 
resolution was reported to the Senate without amendments 
(Congressional Record, February 25, 1897, page 2392), and 
then and there the matter ended. The Honorable Mr. 
Stephen M. White, of California, addressed the Senate for 
some time, and the debate went over to the following day, when 
the Honorable Mr. George Gray, from Delaware, formally 
informed the Senate that Julio Sanguily had been released, 
and that no further action in regard to this matter was therefore 
necessary. " Sanguily has been released," said the Honorable 
Senator, " and thanks to God is to-day a free man. So much 
has been accomplished by an American Secretary of State, 
who throughout all this business has never failed to assert the 
rights and dignity of this country in behalf of this Spanish- 
American citizen." 

During the course of the discussion on the 25th of February, 
1897, the writer of these pages, feeling apprehensive as to the 
effect which the action of the Senate in Committee of the 
Whole might produce both in Cuba and in Madrid, deemed it 
to be his duty to address himself to the Honorable Chairman 
of the Committee on Foreign Relations of that distinguished 
body, and request in his client's name the suspension of 
a movement which endangered his liberty. He went to the 
Senate Chamber, and having been granted there the honor and 
the favor of a personal interview with that distinguished 
Senator, explained to him verbally what the real situation of 
the case was in Havana, and how perhaps at that very moment, 
as it proved exactly to be the fact, the order for the release of 
the prisoner had already reached there. In addition to these 
statements, which the distinguished Senator kindty listened 



99 

to and considered, the writer of these pages left in his hands 
the following letter : 

Washington, D. C, 

February 25th, 1897. 
Honorable John Sherman, 

Chairman of the Senate Committee 

of Foreign Relations, etc., etc., etc. 
Sir : — Shall I be permitted, in my capacity of counsel and 
representative of Mr. Julio Sanguily, imprisoned in Havana, 
to request you, in all earnest, in the name of my client, and for 
his benefit, to prevent, if possible, the passage of the resolution 
directing a demand to be made upon the Spanish Government 
for the release of my client ? 

Said release having been already granted by the Spanish 
Government, upon no other condition than the fulfilment of a 
certain technical requirement of the Spanish law, a condition 
to which I here, and Sanguily's lawyer in Havana, do readily 
assent : would it not be injurious to the prisoner to afford the 
Spanish Government a plausible opportunity to withdraw from 
its engagement in this respect ? 

Of course, I can not but be grateful to the generous spirit 
shown by the resolution to which I refer, — as I am with all 
my heart, and my client is, grateful to the Honorable Secretary 
of State for his manly, untiring and benevolent efforts in favor 
of Mr. Sanguily. I can not but see and recognize that the 
movement in the Senate is inspired in the same generous feeling 
which from the beginning has inspired the Honorable Secretary 
of State. But I am afraid that the effect which the resolution, 
if passed, will necessarily produce in the Government circles of 
Spain, and perhaps among the masses, will result in the defeat 
of the efforts, both of the State Department and of the Senate. 
I make to you therefore an earnest appeal, in the name of 
Mr. Sanguily, to submit this letter, if proper, to the consider- 
ation of the Senate, which in its wisdom will no doubt pay 
attention to the statements therein contained 
I am, sir, with the greatest respect 

Your obedient servant, 

J. I. Rodriguez, 

Counsel for Julio Sangidly. 

The announcement made by the Honorable Senator from 
Delaware, Mr. George Gray, caused, as it was natural, the 
whole matter to stop. There was, of course, some show of 



100 

the disappointment felt by some political opponents of the 
Honorable Secretary of State, in seeing, that his wise and 
patriotic action had been vindicated by that greatest of human 
tests which is called success, and that therefore the possibility 
to harrass him in this respect had vanished. But beyond 
some weak expressions of that feeling, nothing else was done, 
except the presentation by the Honorable Mr. John W. Daniel, 
from Virginia, of a document which contradicts the so-called 
statement of facts presented to the Senate by the Honorable 
Mr. Call, on January 7th, 1897, in the part thereof which 
refers to the place of naturalization of Sanguily. This docu- 
ment is a certified copy of the record of Sanguily's naturaliza- 
tion, on August 6th, 1878, in the Superior Court of the City of 
New York, under Section 2167 of the Revised Statutes of the 
United States, commonly known by the name of the ' ' Law of 
minors." 

The Honorable Senator requested that this certified copy 
should be printed in the Record, and so it was ordered and 
done. (Congressional Record, February 27th, 1897, P a g e 
2404.) 



101 



XII. 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE CASE OF JULIO SANGUILY 
AND OTHER CASES OF SIMILAR CHARACTER. 

/. The Trasher Case. 

Mr. John Sidney Trasher, a native of the city of Port- 
land, in the State of Maine, of the United States of America, 
residing in Havana, was arrested on the 16th of October, 1851, 
tried for alleged "treason" to the Spanish Government by a 
military tribunal, namely the Permanent and Executive 
Military Commission of the Island of Cuba, and condemned, 
on the 1 6th of November following, to imprisonment for eight 
years in chains and at hard labor in the penal settlement of 
Ceuta, in northern Africa. 

The State Department, at whose head was at that time a 
man of such force and pronounced Americanism as the great 
Daniel Webster, did not accede however to interfere in behalf 
of the prisoner, or to urge that the privileges of Article VII of 
the treaty of 1795, should be extended to him. The action 
which he took, and indeed most reluctantly, was in favor of a 
pardon, and gave up from the outset the great point upon which 
the intervention by the Government of the United States could 
only be warranted. Mr. Webster explained in his remarkable 
report of December 23rd, 1851 (Executive Document No. 10, 
House of Representatives, 32nd Congress, 1st Session pages from 
2 to 7), that while there was " no doubt that John S. Trasher is a 
citizen of the United States by birth," even admitting that the 
treaty between the United States and Spain granted such privi- 
leges as were claimed by the prisoner and his friends, the point 
still remained to be settled whether those rights secured by 
treaty, "be not justly limited to such persons as are, at the 
time, in all respects, American citizens, having never volun- 
tarily changed their domicile, or taken upon themselves a new 
allegiance." 



102 

In fact it might be said, that Mr. Webster would not have 
interfered at all in this business, if Mr. Daniel M. Barringer, 
United States Minister at Madrid, would have not ventured to 
take up the subject there "without orHcial instructions " (Mr. 
Barringer to Mr. Webster, January 14, 1852, Executive Docu- 
ment, No. 86, House of Representatives, 33d Congress, 1st 
session, page 106), and succeeded in persuading the Spanish 
Government to apply to Mr. Trasher the benefits of a general 
amnesty granted in those days by Her Majesty the Queen of 
Spain. 

The Cuban question at that time was not less prominently 
than now before the eyes of the American statesmen, and the 
friends of Mr. Trasher had taken all the advantage that the 
circumstances afforded them to create agitation. The public 
press had not been negligent in helping Mr. Trasher' s cause, 
and his friends in Congress had also done their best. A reso- 
lution was passed, on the 15th of December, 1 851, by the House 
of Representatives of the United States, ' ' requesting the Presi- 
dent, so far as in his judgment may be compatible with the 
public interest, to communicate to the House any information 
in possession of the Executive respecting the imprisonment, 
trial and sentence of John S. Trasher in the Island of Cuba, 
and to his right to claim the protection of the Government as a 
native born citizen of the United States;" and the President in 
response to this resolution sent first a report from Mr. Webster, 
Secretary of State (the report to which reference has been made 
before) and the papers which together with it were printed and 
are known as "Executive Document, No. 10, House of Repre- 
sentatives, 32nd Congress, 1st session, Information respecting 
the imprisonment, etc., of John S. Trasher." Additional 
papers were transmitted on January 2nd, 1852, which were 
likewise printed and form "Executive Document No. 14, House 
of Representatives, 32nd Congress, 1st session, Further in- 
formation respecting the imprisonment, etc., of John S. 
Trasher." 



103 

In April, 1854, still further information was forwarded to the 
House of Representatives, as enclosures to a report from the 
Secretary of State, Mr. W. I,. Marcy, to the President of the 
United States ' ' in regard to Spanish violations of the rights of 
American citizens." — Executive Document No. 86, House of 
Representatives, 33rd Congress, 1st session. — The papers 
relating to Mr. Trasher's case included in this volume can be 
found from page 105 to page 127. 

Mr. Trasher himself, who always was loud in his denunciation 
of the treatment to which he was submitted, had caused his 
Appeal to the Government of the United States and to his 
fellow-citizens, written " in a dungeon of the Punta Castle," 
Havana, November 21st, 1851 (Ex. Doc. No. 14, House of 
Representatives, 32nd Congress, 1st session, pages 6 to 8), to 
be published and widely circulated in the United States. 

And Mr. Allen F. Owen, who was then the United States 
Consul at Havana, had been so diligent and energetic in 
defending the rights of Mr. Trasher, that the Governor-General 
of Cuba told him officially, November 23rd, 185 1. "You are 
well aware that Consuls are nothing else than mere commer- 
cial agents, and I nothing more than a deputy of the Spanish 
Government in this province. The complaints and reclamations 
of Mr. J. S. Trasher are therefore out of the sphere of those 
reclamations which you, in the exercise of your consular 
functions, have the power to prefer. My duty could never 
permit me to answer to them." (Executive Document No. 10, 
House of Representatives, 32nd Congress, 1st session, page 20.) 
Marquis Miraflores, the Spanish Secretary of State, in writing 
to Mr. Barringer, the United States Minister at Madrid, August 
20th, 1 85 1, explained to him that the Captain- General of Cuba 
had the power "to suspend" a Consul, and "even to compel 
him to leave the Island, without such an act being considered as 
an infringement of the respect due to the Government which 
he serves," and suggested in consequence "the propriety of 
Mr. Allen F. Owen's making himself thoroughly acquainted 
with the nature and extent of his duties." {Ibid, page 10.) 



104 

In spite of all this, Mr. Webster, while yielding as he said 
to the pressure of Mr. Trasher's friends, not without explain- 
ing the reason why he believed that Mr. Trasher ought not to 
be protected (Mr. Webster to Mr. Barringer, December 13th, 
185 1, Ibid, pages 30-32), — confined his action, as above stated, 
to instruct Mr. Barringer to recommend to the Spanish Govern- 
ment "the expediency of pardoning" Mr. Trasher. 

When these instructions reached Madrid, Mr. Barringer had 
done motu proprio, and done successfully, what in this note 
he was told to do. 

And now comes another feature which strongly contrasts 
this case with the case of Sanguily. Not only was the latter 
much better protected by the State Department than Mr. 
Trasher was, but special care was taken from saving him from 
humiliations and sufferings which Mr. Trasher could not 
escape. 

Mr. Trasher was not pardoned until after he had been made 
to travel, in irons, as a convict, from Havana to Vigo, from 
Vigo to Cadiz, and from Cadiz to Ceuta, and until he had 
entered the African penal establishment, and had had his hair 
cropped, his face clean shaved, his body dressed in the convict's 
attire, his limbs burdened with the regulation fetters, and his 
soul afflicted by tremendous humiliation and agony. 

Fourteen months after his release, when the administration 
had been changed, and Mr. W. L. Marcy was Secretary of State, 
Mr. Trasher presented a claim against the Spanish Govern- 
ment asking for an indemnity to the amount of $350,000.00. 
His letter was endorsed by Mr. John L. Hayes, and Mr. 
Alexander N. Lawrence, counsellors at law in the City of 
Washington, as the claimant's attorneys. (Executive Document 
No. 86, House of Representatives, 33d Congress, 1st session, 
page 125 and the following.) 

It appears that this claim was admitted in principle, as 
there is a letter in which Mr. Marcy informed one of the 
lawyers of Mr. Trasher that a proposition had " been recently 



105 

made to Spain and other powers for the organization of a board 
for the mutual adjustment of all existing claims between the 
respective Governments." {Ibid, page 127.) 

Seven years, afterwards, March 5th, i860, a convention was 
concluded in Madrid between the Governments of the United 
States and Spain, establishing a joint Commission for the final 
adjudication and payment of all the claims of the respective 
parties, — a convention by which, according to Dr. Wharton's 
authorized opinion, "the validity and amount of the Cuban 
claims were expressly admitted and their speedy payment was 
placed beyond question." The negotiation failed, however, 
because the Senate of the United States ' ' greatly to the surprise 
of the President and the disappointment of the claimants" 
refused to approve the convention. — (Dr. Wharton's, Digest of 
the International L,aw of the United States, section 38, Vol. I, 
page 164.) 

Whether Mr. Trasher's claim was included in that arrange- 
ment, or whether it is still in abeyance and waiting with the 
others, which the failure of the convention left again in nubibus, 
or whether it was acted upon in some other way, the writer of 
these pages does not know. 

The fact has been mentioned only to demonstrate that the 
opinion so absolutely and dogmatically maintained by the 
Honorable Mr. Wm. P. Fry, in the Senate of the United States, 
on the 25th of February, 1897, that the granting of a pardon 
involves for the pardoned man and his family the loss of all 
claims whatever for damages, was not shared on this occasion 
either by his fellow-citizen from Maine, Mr. Trasher, his attor- 
neys, Mr. Alexander N. Lawrence, and Mr. John L. Hayes, 
or perhaps Mr. Marcy himself. Even if it were true, absolutely, 
that a pardon has the effect attributed to it by the distin- 
guished Senator from Maine, the slightest investigation of 
the subject might have shown him that one thing is a pardon, 
by which the penalties of a sentence are wiped out, and another 
thing is a commutation of a sentence, by which a penalty is 
imposed in place of another. 



io6 

II. The Houard Case. 

Mr. John Emiuo Houard, a native of the City of Phila- 
delphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, of the United States 
of America, residing in Cienfuegos, Island of Cuba, where he 
was engaged in the practice of medicine, was arrested on the 
20th of July, 187 1, tried by a council of war, on the charge of 
being in sympathy with the insurgents, and having given 
them money and medicines (*), and sentenced on December 
15th, 1871, to imprisonment for eight years in chains and at 
hard labor in the penal settlement of Ceuta in northern Africa, 
and to the confiscation of his property. 

The State Department, at whose head was at that time a man 
so prominent and conspicuous in the History of the United 
States as the Honorable Mr. Hamilton Fish, of New York, 
was, did not feel much more affected by Dr. Houard' s mis- 
fortunes, than it formerly had been by Mr. Trasher's. 

Friends and relations of Dr. Houard urged the Honorable 
Mr. Hamilton Fish to protect the prisoner. A number of 
trustworthy citizens of Philadelphia sent to him a memorial 
requesting him to take action for the discharge of Dr. Houard 
from his confinement. The Vice President of the United 
States, Mr. Schuyler Colfax, put himself personally in com- 
munication with him respecting this business. And the House 
of Representatives of the United States passed a resolution 
(March 19th, 1872) requesting the President to communicate 
to that body, " if not incompatible with the public interest all 
the information in possession of the Government relative to the 
case of Dr J. E. Houard, a native of Philadelphia, and a citizen 
of the United States, now held by the Spanish authorities on 
the Island of Cuba, and what steps, if any, have been taken to 
protect the rights of this American citizen, who it is alleged 
from various respectable sources has been unjustly arrested, 



(*) The latter charge rested on the fact that a small box of homeopathic 
medicines, on the interior of which the Doctor's name was stamped, was 
found by a Spanish column, in a rebel encampment. 



107 

condemned and transported to a penal settlement on the coast 
of Africa." 

In addition to this resolution, the Honorable Mr. Samuel J. 
Randall, of Pennsylvania, introduced on April 8, 1872, another 
one which recited at length the wrongs done to Dr. Houard, 
and ended by declaring that in the j udgment of the House the 
President should promptly demand his unconditional release 
and the return of his confiscated property. 

In response to the resolution of the House, the President sent 
the papers which were printed and form: (1) Executive Docu- 
ment No. 223, House of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd 
session; (2) Executive Document No. 223, part 2nd, House of 
Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd session; and (3) Miscel- 
laneous Document No. 188, House of Representatives, 42nd 
Congress, 2nd session. 

Mr. Alfred T. A. Torbert, who was then the United States 
Consul- General at Havana, and who as shown by his despatch 
of February 19, 1872 (Executive Document No. 223, House 
of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd session, page 125), 
entertained an opinion as to Dr. Houard's American citizen- 
ship, different from that of the Honorable Mr. Hamilton Fish, 
interposed all his influence with the Governor- General of Cuba, 
in favor of Dr. Houard, who to his judgment was "beyond 
a doubt " a citizen of the United States of America, and suc- 
ceeded in securing that the prisoner, who had already ' ' his 
beard and hair cut off" and donned "the prison garb," 
"would not be sent to work outside of the prison." 

In his letter to Vice President Colfax the Honorable Mr. 
Hamilton Fish alleged against the claim of American citizen- 
ship made by Dr. Houard and his friends, that it did not 
appear that Dr. ,Houard ' ' interested himself, as did so many 
citizens at home and abroad, in behalf of the union cause dur- 
ing our own war, that he offered his services as surgeon in our 
volunteer army, that he subscribed to any of the war charities, 
or that he paid at any time income tax or other tax to the 



io8 

United States." (Executive Document No. 223, House of 
Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd session, page 29.) And 
what was still worse for the prisoner, the Honorable Mr. 
Hamilton Fish went further on and said : " The strong point 
which prevents the intervention of this Government in behalf 
of Dr. Houard from being efficacious for his release is the fact 
that he has been regularly tried and found guilty by a duly 
constituted tribunal in the Island of Cuba. ' ' {Ibid, page 29. ) (*) 

It will be seen without difficulty that while opinions of this 
kind prevailed at the State Department, the action of the latter 
in favor of the prisoner was necessarily lukewarm. There was 
nevertheless at that time at Madrid, as diplomatic represen- 
tative of the United States, such a strong and able man as 
General Daniel E. Sickles, and through his efforts, not entirely 
unaided by the unexpected appearance of an American man- 
of-war at the port of Cadiz, a pardon was granted to Dr. 
Houard, who was already at Ceuta. Don Cristino Martos, 
Spanish Secretary of State, informed General Sickles of the 
decision reached, on July 4th, 1872; but it took a long while 
for the orders to reach the penal settlement, and Dr. Houard 
was not actually released until the 1st of August, 1872. 

One year afterwards, Doctor Houard presented a claim for 
damages against the Government of Spain, and asked for an 
indemnity of $50,000. The Honorable Mr. Hamilton Fish 
referred this claim to the United States and Spanish Claims 
Commission of Arbitration, which some time before had been 
established in Washington, and there it was entered under 
No. 107. The Advocate of the United States, who was then 
the learned and distinguished jurist, Mr. Thomas J. Durant, 
defended the case and attended to the rights of the claimant 
and of the United States in his behalf, as zealously and ably as 
he always did. The American Arbitrator recognized the 
validity of the claim and made an award for $50,000. The 



(*) The record of this trial before a Council of War is on the files of the 
United States and American Claims Commission of 1871-83, case No. 107. 



109 

Arbitrator for Spain disagreed and dismissed the case. The 
Umpire who was then Baron Blanc, the Italian Minister in 
Washington, was called therefore to decide the case ; but that 
distinguished gentleman, as set forth in his opinion of February 
4th, 1880, — fully eight years after the presentation of the 
case, — launched the claim out of existence on the following 
grounds : 

' ' The Umpire does not deem it consistent with the character 
of his office, nor required by the interests of either party, that 
the questions involved in the sentence, those disposed of here- 
tofore and intended to be closed by a conditional pardon granted 
as the result of an international agreement should now be re- 
opened. With this view of the case it is unnecessary to deter- 
mine whether or not (*) the alleged loss of claimant's nationality 
of origin by expatriation is sustained. On the other ground 
above stated the Umpire must hold against the claimant and 
therefore dismisses the claim." 

The Umpire said, however, that "the injustice complained of 
(by the claimant) is hardly open to dispute." 

HI. The Pouble Case. 

Mr. Cirilo PouBue, a naturalized citizen of the United 
States, residing in New York, went to Cuba, with an American 
passport, vised by the Spanish Consul at Key West, Fla. , and 
was arrested at the very moment of his arrival at Havana on 
the 23d of November, 1884. The Spanish Consul after viseing 
his passport informed the Cuban authorities that Mr. Pouble 
was going there, and they waited for him, and put him under 
arrest as soon as he landed. 

They searched his baggage, and found nothing either in his 
trunk or about his person. 



(*) The determination of this question was however the only duty 
devolved upon the Umpire under the agreement which created the 
Commission. 



1 10 

From there he was taken to the public jail and then to a cell 
in the La Punta Castle situated at the entrance of the Havana 
harbor. 

His offense consisted in having been the editor, in the City 
of New York, of a newspaper, printed in the Spanish language, 
and called El Separatista, — a paper which was no longer in 
existence, and which had strenuously advocated the cessation of 
the Spanish rule in Cuba, — in having been a member of a political 
club established in New York devoted to the propagation of the 
same ideas, — and in having issued, or signed, while in the 
United States, as member of that club, or in some other capa- 
city, certain printed blanks of commissions to serve in the 
revolutionary Cuban army. 

The Spanish authorities of Cuba did not make any effort to 
contradict Mr. Pouble's American citizenship, and decided to 
try him by civil jurisdiction under the terms of the Cushing- 
Calderon y Collantes Protocol, and according to the provisions 
of the Law of April 17th, 1821. At the end of thirty-two 
months (August 10th, 1886), a sentence was passed by the 
Court, which condemned Mr. Pouble to imprisonment for life 
at hard labor. 

This most remarkable case attracted in its day to consider- 
able extent the attention of the public. The claim that Mr. 
Pouble was liable to punishment by the Spanish authorities in 
Cuba, when caught there, for alleged offenses against her, com- 
mitted, if committed at all, outside of the Spanish territory, in- 
volved an assertion of extra-territorial j urisdiction which could 
not be easily acquiesced by the people of this country. The 
arguments that the result of the offense committed here was 
to have its effect there, — and that promoting here ill feeling 
against Spain was equivalent to making war against her, which 
a private citizen certainly cannot do, — were strained to such 
an undue extent, that all their force was lost. 

The friends of Mr. Pouble, and the writer of these pages, 
as Mr. Pouble's counsel, exhausted all the means which were 



I II 

at their disposal for the relief of the prisoner. Nothing could 
be obtained from the State Department ; but the Senate of the 
United States, whose attention was called to the subject by 
means of a memorial, took not entirely without effect, some 
notice of the case. The Senate Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions reported, on March 24, 1886, that there is nothing that at 
present calls for any action on the part of the Senate, or of Con- 
gress. But, " if there should be much further delay in the trial 
of Pouble, it will become a subject for very serious consider- 
ation on the part of the Government of the United States." 
(Senate Report No. 275, 49th Congress, 1st session.) 

An effort was then made to release Mr. Pouble by imploring 
his pardon, but not even this movement was undertaken by 
the Honorable Mr. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen or fostered 
with his assistance. 

A sister of the prisoner was requested by the friends of the 
latter, to file a petition to the Supreme Government of Spain, 
requesting the pardon of her brother; and the United States 
Consul-General at Havana, Mr. R. O. Williams, interposed 
in great earnest all his personal influence with the Gover- 
nor-General to secure, as he did, that the petition should 
be sent to Madrid, with favorable recommendation. On 
October 25th, 1888, he was still working, together with the 
writer of these pages, in securing the desired release (*). But 
the pardon was not granted until the 23rd of January, 1889; 
and then Mr. Pouble, after four years and two months of im- 
prisonment in La Punta Castle was set at liberty. 



(*) Mr. Williams addressed then to the writer of these pages the follow- 
ing letter : 

Havana, October 25, 1888. 
My Dear Mr. Rodriguez : 

I am glad to be able to inform you that the petition of Miss Pouble has 
been most favorably reported upon by the authorities having cognizance 
of the matter, and that it goes forward to Spain to-day endorsed by the 
hearty recommendation of the Governor-General in favor of the pardon 
of her brother Mr. Cirilo Pouble. 

I am, yours very truly, 
J. I. Rodriguez, Esq., Ramon O. Wiwjams. 

Ebbitt House, 

Washington, D. C. 



112 



CONCLUSION. 

The reader of these pages will find out, without difficulty, 
especially if he is in any way conversant with public affairs, or if 
he feels some interest, whether professional, political, or merely 
historical, in the subject to which they refer, that the lessons 
to be taught by the study of the Sanguily case are in numerous 
respects exceedingly important. And indeed, were it not for 
this reason, the excuse for increasing, with this new allusion to 
a case finally disposed of, the burden already ponderous of the 
juridical and diplomatic literature of the day, would be rather 
flimsy. 

One aspect more than others commends the case especially 
to the attention of students, — and it is the close resemblance 
which it bears, from its inception to its end, and through all its 
different evolutions, to the general perplexing and most in- 
volved political and social problem of the Island of Cuba, — a re- 
semblance which increases the interest to be felt in its study, as 
it takes away from the subject its individual character and raises 
it up to higher grounds, where universal justice and far sighted 
statesmanship can be called into exercise. 

The Sanguily case reveals, prominently above all its other 
features, and in the most striking similitude with all the phases 
of the political situation in Cuba, ever since 1825, that a 
feeling of deeply rooted, almost invincible distrust, capable 
to put down and smother all sentiment of kinship, good 
will or even magnanimity, — is the prevailing element in the 
relations between Spain and Cuba. It shows, also in common 
with the Cuban question, that this nefarious, sterilizing senti- 
ment, causes wrongs to be done, even in spite of generous im- 
pulses, and prevents them from being righted, except, if ever, 
at a late hour, through outside pressure, and in a manner cal- 
culated to produce no lasting effect. It bears testimony, ex- 
actly the same as the Cuban problem, to the fact, whether 
willingly or unwillingly accepted, and each time better estab- 



H3 

lished, that in all questions concerning the action of Spain in 
this continent the United States of America are a party to the 
contention, — and that in obedience to eternal laws, historical 
and social, as inevitable in their effect as the laws of Nature, 
the wishes of the Government of the United States of America 
have always to prevail in the end. And it shows, in fine, and 
in no lesser a degree than the Cuban problem, that all attempt, 
no matter how much accompanied by noise and alleged popu- 
lar support, to force upon the administration, an undesired 
attitude, or to dictate to it the manner and the form in which 
its duty must be performed, — is foolish to the extreme, and 
dangerous even if it is sincere. 

There is an incident in the military career of Julio Sanguily, 
to which his brother Don Manuel, with all the fervor of his 
eloquence made a brilliant allusion at the banquet given by 
some friends of the former in the city of Philadelphia, Pa., in 
celebration of his freedom and his return to the United States. 
The distinguished orator compared what he called ' ' the first 
rescue ' ' of his brother, — when the latter prostrated by the 
enemy at an encounter during the ten years war, and made a 
prisoner and wounded, and tied to the back of a horse, and carried 
in this way to some safe place of imprisonment, or perhaps to 
the scaffold, was restored to liberty by the sudden appear- 
ance of the heroical Cuban General Don Ignacio Agramonte, 
who with characteristic impetuosity threw himself in the midst 
of the group of soldiers who surrounded his helpless friend and 
attacked them and caused them to fly in terror and abandon 
their prey, — with what he called very properly ' ' the second 
rescue," when the American eagle snatched him again out of 
the hands of his enemies and opened for him the gates of the 
prison. 

The writer of these pages was not present at that festivity, 
but what he learned of this well devised comparison impressed 
him by its correctness. Had it not been for this giant, who is 
called the American Government : had it happened for its ex- 



H4 

ecutive and diplomatic department to be entrusted to less faith- 
ful hands, or to persons of less supreme manliness and political 
honesty than President Cleveland and his Secretary of State, 
Mr. Olney , the fate of Sanguily would have been very different. 
Thanks to the courage of those two great Americans, to their 
wonderful power of resistance to improper pressure from what- 
ever side, and to their kindness towards the prisoner in whom 
they saw only a fellow-citizen, Julio Sanguily is not still linger- 
ing inside a Spanish fortress, or serving a sentence as cruel as 
ignominious. 

It was printed by the Washington Post, in its edition of the 
4th of March, 1897, in a review of '* Mr. Cleveland's second 
term as President," that "if there were nothing else to the 
credit of his administration, the diplomatic victory obtained 
by Secretary Olney over the British Foreign Office in a series 
of masterly dispatches (the Venezuelan affair), would suffice 
to set off" all errors or shortcomings, if any, which might be 
found. "But this glorious chapter," the paper further said 
' ' is happily not alone. By its side must be placed the negotia- 
tion of the general arbitration treaty, which no matter when, 
or in what manner ratified," (or rejected the writer of these 
pages says) "must always stand as another monument to the 
skill and power of Secretary Olney." 

The release of Sanguily stands also by its side ; and so stand 
other victories, and more than all the cessation of the system 
and of the influences which for long time before had made 
Spain almost omnipotent in Washington. 

The intervention of the Achilles of the Cuban war of 1868- 
1878 saved Sanguily upon the field of battle. The intervention 
of the Achilles of the American diplomacy saved him now 
from his enemies and perhaps also from his friends. 



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